A Little Hope to Go Around

With the sentiment of Thanksgiving still in the air, I'd like to tell a quick story about my flight back to Miami this morning. Before you click away...this story has nothing to do with turbulence, uptight overhead compartment rules, or delays (because I could go on about those too) and all to do with the woman who was seated next to me.

Election day came and went, but the discussion did not quiet down as expected. Protests and seemingly endless Facebook rants are enough to confirm that many people are not happy about the results. While even I spent a lot of time reporting on the election, I did not expect to (or quite frankly want to) strike up any conversation about it on this early morning flight. And until the last few minutes of the flight, I had been successful.

That's when I looked over at an Asian woman seated next to me. I couldn't help but notice the selfies she was scrolling through on her phone with none other than Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Without thinking, I blurted out, "Wow, that's awesome." I mean, regardless of your political stance, a selfie with the next President is pretty cool, right? She quietly laughed and said, "Oh, I'm embarrassed."I thought, this perfectly sums up the election. Even people who planned on voting for Trump did not want to admit it, which is why the outcome was a shock.

The woman went on to tell me that she had voted for Hillary Clinton (hence her embarrassment) but was invited to speak at an event at Trump's transition headquarters in Bedminster, NJ. While I expected the conversation to end there, she continued with an unlikely praise of the President-Elect. She said that as an immigrant woman, she felt unbelievably welcome at the event. After meeting Trump, she called him "Mr. Misunderstood" saying she now felt confident he would do an effective job running the country.

With an open mind, her perspective had changed. Her short and simple story gave me hope that our country too would look at the next presidency with an open mind and unite around the next President of the United States. While she is only person in a sea of billions, her message is a little bit of hope that I will hold on to.