Encouragement

In a skimpy tube top and threadbare daisy duke short-shorts, she walks barefoot on the sidewalk as sporadic lone males in their cars circle the block. Some are trying to work up the courage while most are doing a quick recon of the area for police prior to stopping their car and asking the proverbial prostitution question, "Do you need a ride?"

She is fidgety from years of intense methamphetamine abuse and twitches her way down the sidwalk heading home to her parent's house.  She graduated high school, but fell in with the wrong crowd and never got a steady job due to her addiction.  Being tall, blond and blessed with an athletic build, boyfriends would come and go, but all fed her addiction so she never needed to prostitute.

The cop stopped to talk to her and immediately she became frantic from her extreme paranoia caused by all the hard chemicals. She tucked her jerking chin and watched him with shifty eyes.

"I didn't do anything wrong," she slurred as she ground her teeth with her jaw moving from side to side. She twitched and jerked and continued to walk, with the blackness on the bottom of her barefeet noticed with every step.

"I know," replied the cop.  "But, Teresa, there's more to life than what you're doing.  There's a whole big wonderful world out there waiting for you. Don't limit yourself to these 4 blocks and doing dope." He didn't want to press her for any information, but he simply wanted to shock her with a reality check that may have been missing from her life for years.

"How do you know my name?" she asked very nervously as she tweaked with the drug coursing through her veins.

"It's my job to know people in the area," the cop said as Teresa nervously twitched down the sidewalk, making frequent glances back towards the officer. "And...you're better than this," was his parting comment.

Teresa continued in her dark, dead end existence of addiction and one night, she dissappeared.  A month later, she was noticed walking down the same street, by the same cop, but she traveled with a different gait. Now she took large, purposeful strides with a huge smile on her face.

"Where have you been?" asked the officer. "I was worried your disappearance meant you became the latest statistic," assuming the worst had happened to her.

"I went to rehab and I'm clean!" she beamed with positive energy.  "And, I owe it all to you."

Astonished, the cop replied, "Thanks, but you are the one who fought the monster and won."

"Well... you got me thinking...and that's why I went to rehab...thank you," Teresa added as she continued to float down the sidewalk, walking on a cloud and radiating her newfound self confidence. 

Several years later the officer saw her again where he learned she had remained sober, got a job and moved out of her parent's house and started a new life.

Encouragement.  The power of a few sincere words can have a startling impact on a person.