December 24, 1997. Kurt and his parents boarded a long flight to Vermont to stay in a charming cabin for Christmas. Born and raised in Arizona, this was his first time ever seeing snow. Bundled in thick layers with a hot thermos in his hands and his parents gathered around him, the boy barely felt the breathtaking cold. As they packed up, preparing to fly home and celebrate New Year's Eve with family--a tradition from his mother’s side--he eagerly announced that he wanted to visit that cabin every Christmas from now on. But a pocket of intense turbulence on the flight home--which he had slept through in blissful unawareness--left his parents terrified of flight. A year later, a severe medical ordeal would leave him with a lifelong phobia that made him understand the nature of his parents' trauma and he put aside his hopes of returning to that cabin in Vermont. Even so, the memory of that snow-blanketed Christmas Eve remained precious and untarnished in his mind.
