Friday, August 30, 2013

Unknown Moments.

Dear Mom,
 The week leading up to your surgery you unknowingly had an obsession. An obsession with the Kardashians.

Most likely due to the TIA's you were having, you became very forgetful. While such forgetfulness scared Shelb and I at times, (you forgetting you were lactose intolerant while Dad was on a business trip was a scary night for us), funny moments also came out of it all. My favorite was the week that you forgot you had already watched the Kardashian wedding on Entertainment twice before.

It was a memory of you that I now hold dear. I remember very vividly that the wedding special aired on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. I sat next to you for the 2 hour episode 3 separate times. 3 separate days. With 3 separate experiences.

You were convinced every single time that you had NOT, in fact, seen this same episode/wedding a few days prior and though I mentioned it casually once, it broke my heart to spill the news that you had... And that all three times were with me.

I couldn't muster up the guts to frustrate your heart and tell you that you had forgotten. So I sat next to you. I sat on the couch and listened to you repeat the same comments,of course unknowingly, from the previous time you had seen it. I gasped and was in shock over the extravagance and the crazy amounts of drama oozing out of that television screen with you, as if I too had no idea what was coming.

Mom, you and Dad taught me well growing up never to lie. But that time- I figured it was okay... I wanted to sit with you in your reality. I didn't want to scare you by bringing up the idea that your brain wasn't functioning "normally" or that you  "were sick and so you forgot". I wanted to protect you from fear, if only for that moment. I wanted to focus on loving you and not belittling you due to things that were outside of your control.

I learned a lot in that silly experience. I learned what it meant to stand in someone else's shoes. What it meant to step into someone else's pain and carry it with them...even if they have no idea that that is what you were trying to do. Even if in their mind you are just enjoying a TV show.

I also learned exactly the opposite of that experience, I learned in your experience. I learned that sometimes we all need someone who will be willing to sit with us and enjoy a TV show, even if their reasoning for doing so isn't exactly that. Even if their motive is to carry your burden, you can remind them that what matters more sometimes is not always the grandiose efforts but the simple, "normal" ones. From your vantage point Mom, from your experience, I believe my decision to watch the TV show mattered more to you than my efforts to carry your burden.

That moment grew me...and I can thank the Kardashian sisters for always reminding me of that precious day with you.
Love Always and Forever
Your Daughter,
Brittany

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Hashtag Real Life?

Mom,
When I think of time in terms of this blog it seems to go by so fast.

I have left for and returned from my one month missionary& teaching excursion in Germany already,  & as I continue to process all the challenges and things I learned there I gain a larger sense of peace with it. Mom, my time over there was both one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I have under taken thus far. While I know only the staff I shared it with will be able to truly understand what happened within me over there, I'm thankful to be home & able to share all my stories.

Since returning I've landed with full force: tackling doctors appointments, being back at work (& working 3 times harder to catch up), and I moved into my new apartment!

Real life has hit with no sense of ease, but a definite wave of eagerness to step up to the challenges.
...
I have always been a realist... I think you instilled that in me Mom...so it doesn't feel uncomfortable to me that real life isn't easy. To be honest, I don't think I ever had a fairytale version of adulthood anyway.

For example, today alone: Shelb & sent Kell off to her school year adventure in France, I'm tackling a storm of ants in our kitchen (I guess they thought our walls were a safe home from the heat), and writing this post on my phone as we wait to set up wifi.And that's what I expected real life to be...
It reminds me that in many weird ways, I'm thankful to you & dad for raising us in a way that prepares us to take on challenges, however big or small.

In so many ways, several unspoken on here, I know the challenges I have coming to me in the future are so much larger than some ants and  lots of tearful "see ya laters"...but right now I'm thankful.

I'm thankful for the courage&strength that God gives me for this life. I'm thankful for a deep sense of love for my friends, family, and chosen family-- even if that love makes send offs harder.  I'm thankful for "sisters" who greet me with a dinner date, after I've been gone for a month, with so much joy and anticipation an outsider would think it's been a year. I'm thankful for technology that makes getting support from now dear friends states, or countries, away so much easier. I'm thankful for you Mom, and all those in Heaven & on Earth watching out for me.

I'm thankful for all the love poured out on me, even in the challenges of my "real life" reality. Oh am I so glad we never have to do this life alone...or else I know I would have given up out of fear long ago.
Love Always and Forever
Your Daughter,
Brittany