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