Luke is named after the Jedi

Today I will take my last test of the quarter.  Next week are my two final exams.  I hope they are my last final exams for awhile.  I'm ready to focus on the therapy program.  Laurie and I already have a great program lined up.  Now, I just need to get all the paper work together, get the website up, and work on getting brochures and business cards printed.  After Christmas I plan on starting to pitch our program to hospitals and schools in the greater Cincinnati area.  It is a good program.  It will work for the kids that need it and attend it - even if they have to go through the program more than once.  I wish I had something like it when I was younger.  Thankfully, I had Laurie as a role model and I turned out great.

For those of you who don't know Laurie Stober, she was my religion teacher my freshmen year of high school.  She has one arm and a son named Luke.  Back in high school I asked her if she named him after Luke Skywalker.  She said no, he was named after Luke from the bible.  I still think anyone named Luke is named after the Jedi.  I digress, as usual.  Laurie made high school religion fun.  We filmed a soap opera about Bathsheba.  All I really remember about that is that we made tampon commercials to make the soap opera more realistic, and I think, Bathsheba took a bath on the roof of a building somewhere.  She also lead the Outdoors Club, Laurie, not Bathsheba.  We took a camping trip where we played football and told ghost stories in a scary, dark, old barn.  One of her friends, disguised as some crazy guy came through the side of the barn with an axe, just like in the story.  It was a trip I'll never forget, just like Laurie.

I used to sit on her desk after school and eat her candy and bug her.  But, she never seemed to be bothered by it.  She left Seton High School after my sophomore year and I missed her dearly.  I'd think of her from time to time over the next 13 years or so.  I always remembered her fondly and sent out many a "thank you" to the universe to deliver to her for being such a great role model.  I told countless people about my one armed religion teacher.  Recounting those days made me realize that having her in my life helped me get through a lot of tough times - times when I was full of doubt, self pity, and uncertainty.  But, if she could get through the loss of an arm and still be so upbeat, then I could conquer anything.

As fate would have it, I ran into her in a restaurant one evening.  I heard someone call my name and looked around.  There she was, sitting with a few other woman by the bar.  I almost cried when I saw her.  The woman who had such an impact on my life recognized me and remembered me after all these years.  I sat and talked with her, introduced her to my husband and we exchanged phone numbers.  We got in touch a few days later and realized we both shared a common love for horses.  She had a small therapy program where she counseled trouble teenagers through sharing her horses with them.  And she needed a horse trainer to help her out.  Lo and behold this horse trainer was more than willing to help out.

I started at Full Circle Therapy in the summer of 2010, 15 years after first meeting Laurie Stober.  My hope is that Full Circle Therapy can touch the lives of young people all over Ohio and help them find their inner beauty and their way to enjoy life and to enjoy being who they are.  I know that my hopes and dreams are in motion because of her.