One of the Good Guys

I don’t know about you but lately it feels like all women are talking about is the bad guys. There’s Chris Brown and his alleged (brutal) beating of his “girlfriend,” Rihanna. There’s Jason, ABC’s Bachelor, scorned by women everywhere for dumping his fiance on national television.  And wherever I’ve been out speaking this week about my book, women have been sharing their own painful stories of rejection and the (awful) men who rejected them.

But one woman I met this week had a “man story” that I couldn’t get out of my mind. It was just so stunning, so hard to believe, that I’ve thought about it constantly since we met. No, her husband didn’t leave her, cheat on her, or beat her senseless. Quite the contrary. Leslie Ostrander’s husband is one of the good guys. Check that. One of the great guys.

But then Leslis is no ordinary woman. Since she was four years old Leslie’s been living her life from a wheelchair, paralyzed in a car accident from the chest down.  But that’s not the extraordinary thing about Leslie. What’s so exceptional is the way she’s chosen to lead her life. Not as a disabled  person, but a very able woman.  And that, was obviously very appealing to a man named Aaron.

Leslie met Aaron at a ski resort in Pennsylvania, where, get this, Aaron was a ski instructor for disabled people.  They immediately hit it off, began a long-distance relationship, (she lived in Atlanta, he in Virginia) fell in love, and married a year later.  Leslie said she knew Aaron was something special the first weekend they ever had a date. She had flown to Virginia , wheelchair and all, and when she arrived at his parents’ home, where she was staying, she found that Aaron had removed the framing and widened the bathroom door! And she was only staying for the weekend

That was only the beginning.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Leslie Ostrander never thought she’d ever marry. “What man would want to take this on,” she told me. Turns out, one did.  Aaron not only wanted to take her on, he took her on with gusto.  For the past ten years he has lifted her in her wheelchair up stairs and into cars and boats. He buttons her shirt and puts on her shoes. When they go out for long periods of time he puts on her back brace and her compression hose (we women can barely do that for ourselves!)  So concerned that Leslie live her life as normally as possible, he even takes her four-wheeling with their two young boys, strapping her to himself with a bungie cord. Even typing this makes my want to cry. (And find out if he has a brother.)

What Leslie wants other women to know is that yes, there are wonderful men out there.  She knows, she got one.  But she also wants you to know that she made Aaron work for her.  That probably will come as a shock to most “able-bodied’ women who will do just about anything to land a man and wouldn’t even dream of making him work to win her affection. But that’s exactly what Leslie did. Even as she sat there in her wheelchair, never to walk again, she knew she was someone to be loved and valued and pursued and so that’s what she made Aaron do—pursue her!   From that first weekend when he remodeled his parents’ bathroom Leslie knew that Aaron’s heart was big, he was a keeper.

I tell you all of this, ladies, because I want you to remember Leslie’s story. When you’re dating, look for a man like Aaron. If  you can’t picture him pulling on your pantyhose if you needed him to, move on. Never settle for less. I know I won’t.

—Kimberley

P.s. I’ve included photos of Leslie and Aaron and their little boys, Dylan and Clay. Aren’ they a beautiful family?

You can reach her—or Aaron– at her website, Leslie Speaks.