Season 2 Programming

Carol Kent lived every parent’s nightmare. After her only son was sentenced to life in prison, without possibility of parole, her life took a permanent detour. She had to live with the reality that her son committed murder and in the state of mandatory sentencing, with the reality that he would never be allowed out again. For Douglas Miller Sr., life has taken a harsh turn as well. His only son died in the hands of Jason Paul Kent. For this grief stricken father, life is about living with loss and anguish. As Carol learns to live again, and Doug Sr. learns to forgive, they tell the story of how they adjusted to “A New Kind of Normal,” when life took an unexpected turn.

When U.S Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the frigid Hudson River on a 20-degree day, many wondered how all 155 passengers lived to tell their story. The whole terrorizing incident took only 3 minutes and 20 seconds. In this episode, four strangers become lifetime friends bonded by an experience others cannot understand—the trauma of facing inevitable death followed by the opportunity of living a renewed life.

Known as “Rwanda’s Bishop,” John Ruchyana founded an orphanage to help children left behind from a genocide that killed one million people in a hundred days. But not long after, when he tried to resolve church matters for handful of Americans in Little Rock, Arkansas, he lost all funding for Rwanda’s Orphans. Through it all, he forged a partnership with two businessmen from Little Rock Arkansas. They were able to rebuild the school for the orphans, universities for its graduates and businesses for its adults.

When atheist, A.J. Jacobs, a New York journalist and Ed Dobson, a pastor from Grand Rapids, Michigan decided to live biblically for a year, they altered every aspect of their lives. Changing the way he dressed, ate and thought, A.J. sought life as experience. Diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Ed wanted to experience life. In this unconventional half-hour, we examine how two men with opposite backgrounds took a sometimes humorous, sometimes serious path and came to surprising and unlikely conclusions.

Leah Mayer of Chicago believed she was too intelligent and too educated to be trapped by an abusive man. And when independent thinker Martha Tyler became a pastor’s wife, she found herself believing that her husband was “too good” for her. Both were caught in the mind games, verbal assaults and eventually physical violence that destroyed their self-esteem and deemed them helpless. This Life Focus episode documents a predictable cycle that abusers use to knowingly and slowly take control of their victims.

Today, forty-seven year old Derrick Gardner leaves prison for the fifth time in his life. This convicted felon has spent 26 years locked up, and now he has yet another chance to rehabilitate. But his tearful sister, Linda Gardner, fears he will go back to stealing and end up right back in the slammer. Statistics show that without any support, she is right. Now with a mentor, Derrick learns to stay off drugs, find a job and reconnect with his family.

Jim and Cindy Shilling of Cary, IL admittedly communicate by yelling and shouting. While they love each other and their children, they cannot seem to break out of their long-learned patterns of screaming. Therapist Steve Yashek provides in-office counseling, as well as "in-home" training to teach these well-meaning parents how to resolve problems calmly and peacefully. In this episode, we witness how this family learns to communicate without their decibel and blood pressure levels rising above normal.

Mark and Debra Meehl were on the verge of divorce. Mark's violent mood swings, reckless spending sprees, and utter irrationality were tearing their family apart. At the root of Mark's destructive behavior was a complex psychological problem called Bipolar Disorder, the revelation of which would save their marriage and arguably Mark's very life. When 15-year-old Katherine Finn started cutting herself and exhibited other suicidal behavior, her mother, Kristin, recognized similar disturbing symptoms she had as a teenager. Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Kristin remembers the painful lows of depression, followed by tormenting, exuberant highs of mania. Fred Finn, Katherine’s father, and Holly, the youngest in the family, watch as the disease brings a dark cloud over everyday life. In this episode, Life Focus will reveal the silent devastation Bipolar Disorder imposes on families, and look at real, practical steps they can take to receive help.

When Barbara Ellen tragically left this earth, her five brothers and only sister had to cope with the painful chasm left behind. According to the National Organization of Women, three women a day are murdered by their intimate partner, making up 30 percent of female homicides. In this episode the Lynch family describes how they learned to cope with unspeakable grief after struggling with depression and anger. And so that she would never be forgotten they founded a charity in her name - BELA, or Barbara Ellen Lynch Associates - to help prevent this kind of tragedy from happening to others.

The list of Smokey Robinson's accolades is almost as long as the 4,000 songs that he has written in his lifetime. A Motown Legend, Smokey gained everything most people dream of-fame, money, and romance. Suddenly, however, to the surprise of his fans, family and friends, his life fell apart and revealed a hidden but debilitating cocaine addiction that brought him within one foot from the grave. Robinson's secret was out, and on this episode of Life Focus, we will chronicle the life, the music and the saga of how he fell into and pulled out from this life-threatening addiction without a single trip to a rehabilitation facility.

Boys' imaginations can take them from a backyard to a battlefield where they will pretend to be heroes or villains as they rescue and conquer - and all before lunch. And yet many parents worry, wondering if their sons are simply normal, active boys, or turning into potentially violent men. Chuck and Deborah Hart of Littleton, Colorado, have four active boys. From breakfast to bedtime, these parents are on their feet, running after lively children. In this episode, we'll look at this family's well-studied approach to raising boys and talk to educators and experts who believe that society needs to have a new heart for boys.

In the last year, over 36 Chicago children and teens have been murdered—more than one a week during the school year. Among them, Kendrick and Carnell Pitts, brothers killed in separate shootings within two weeks of each other, leaving their parents, Esther and Juan, in shock and disarray. Today, Esther fights back through a new organization to help teens and children traumatized by violence at school. In this episode, we will meet other teens and leaders who began community programs to protect Chicago’s school children.