Friday, July 18, 1986. A group of my closest friends and I pile into a car and drive to Westwood from Orange County. I was 17 and this was a frequent weekend ritual for us. Orange County was boring and we loved to venture north to go to the then-reigning capital of movie releases. Back in those days, Westwood had movie theatres on almost every corner, and it was THE place to go to see a motion picture with THX and Dolby sound and a coterie of new technologies that made movies better.

My friends and I had also been experimenting with making movies of our own. We borrowed video and Super 8 cameras and created little pieces that today would be a great fit for YouTube. Back then, our audience was a small circle of friends who would gather together and drink beer while watching our handiwork. And that was perfectly fine. We had more fun making the movies than we did distributing and exhibiting.

But Friday, July 18th was a watershed moment. It was the night I pledged that I would go to film school. It was the opening night of James Cameron’s Aliens. Little did I know that it would also be the beginning of a great chapter in Jordan’s Journey.

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Much madness is divinest sense
to a discerning eye.
—Emily Dickinson

Thursday was a big day. Jordan invited me to sit in on her weekly physical therapy session. She loves Kristy, her physical therapist, and she has been bragging to me about their workouts for months. She was excited to show me the studio where they train because she said it was filled with so much fun equipment and games.

In typical Jordan fashion, she nagged me about this visit constantly. We finally set a day and locked it down on my office calendar. My assistant cleared my afternoon of any appointments so that Jordan would have my full and undivided attention.

Jordan was so excited about this day that she planned what she would wear a few days before. She gave me a primer on what to expect the night before. She kept asking me to confirm that it was on my calendar. This was a big deal to her.

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She looked up from her iPad and smiled coyly when he entered the room. Then she looked down again and pecked at the screen. The corner of her mouth was frozen in a slight smirk.

“Hello, sweetheart. How are you today?”

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“When do you think I’ll be able to get out of this wheelchair?” she asks.

It’s a straightforward question; one that she has asked before. “I don’t know,” is the easiest reply but it also feels like a cop out. So, I answer her honestly.

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Several years ago I had an epic debate with one of my best friends about whether people are basically good or bad. He argued that most people have an inherent tendency to act according to their self-interests and that this tendency is the basis for all the corruption, intolerance, and inequity in the world. (Despite how that makes him sound, you should know that he’s lovely–actually one of the most positive and friendly people I know.) I countered his argument with the words of Anne Frank, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” Yesterday was another exhibit in favor of my case.

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