Ok now I am going to cry……….Delta flight attendants to the rescue again....

You know you never know when you share your story with someone else how they are going to react. And this is one of those times when someone else’s reaction has to be shared.

Tonight I am flying from MSP to ANC (Minneapolis to Anchorage for those who don’t speak airport code). And the flight attendant up front, Renee is one of the sweetest I have flown with in a while. Food on these flights is always a challenge for me. Meals are typically very high carb and not the healthiest quality. The snack basket is a combination of candy, carbs and fruit. I usually can pick at a meal, get the stuff out I am safe with and not much else. This trip that wasn’t even possible. I am currently working with a new nutritionist and have a much more stringent set of rules (for 2 weeks). I had turned away everything they served, every snack and was drinking nothing but water, so the Flight Attendant kept coming and checking if I needed anything else.

Finally she commented and said “I feel so bad that you aren’t eating anything”. I decided to share my story with her. It turns out she is a Life Time Fitness member at the Minnetonka club (north of my club). I showed her my pictures, we talked about my training, we talked about how different flying is now (no belt extender nightmares), she complimented me on all I have accomplished and I figured that was that. I was wrong….

A few minutes later she came back, this time accompanied by the other two flight attendants on the flight. In her hands were a bottle of wine and some food. She then proceeded to share with me that she had told the others about what I had accomplished and that they wanted me to have the wine to celebrate sometime (they said to share it with my trainer on a big milestone) and that they had found me some protein from the coach snack boxes! Oh and that the others wanted to see my pictures too.

I didn’t tell her my trainer will be happier she fed me than gave me wine *grin*. I was touched beyond words (and probably came across as a babbling fool because I was caught so off guard). It meant so much to me, I will be checking my luggage on the way home (something I NEVER do) just so I can keep the bottle of wine as a memento.

I never came into this journey to be an inspiration to anyone else, I did this for me. I never thought I had anything to share that mattered to the world. While I know I have worked hard in the last 8 months, most of the time I really don’t think it is anything anyone else couldn’t do if they set their mind to it. I don’t see myself as anything special – just someone who set a goal and has given it their all to achieve it.

But there are moments that like this that remind me how unique what I have done is, and how even for people who aren’t trying to lose weight (the flight crew was all average weight), there is something in my journey that does matter to share. It’s that inherent need we all have to believe that no matter how big the mountain in front of us seems, no matter how impossible a situation is, no matter how much effort it takes, we all have in us that ability to move mountains and to overcome. And that others find that in my story when maybe they have lost track of that in themselves.

Thank you to Delta for having some of the sweetest professionals in the industry who remind me over and over again that even in a business where we are all easily made to feel like cattle being shuffled from place to place on a flying bus there is an airline who does value people and at its heart truly cares. I “Keep Delta My Delta” because of crews like this one!