You Should’ve Seen It In Color
Sometimes the biggest victories happen long before the encore.
Saturday night was supposed to be a special night for MJ. Her first concert. A night of music, excitement, and memories. A chance to experience something she had been wanting to do for a while.
But before we ever even walked through the doors of the EPC, the night took a turn.
We witnessed an accident in the parking lot. Police and EMS were involved. There was a person lying injured on the concrete, lots of blood. And MJ saw it. So, she was upset before we ever made it inside.
Looking back, I wonder if that should have been my sign to turn around and go home. Maybe the night had already become too much for her before it even began.
But we kept going. Because she wanted to be there. Because I wanted her to have this experience. Because I didn’t want one frightening moment to take away something she had been looking forward to.
We got inside. We took pictures. We watched the opening act. We even made it through a couple of Jamey Johnson’s songs.
And then, after she told me her emotions were getting to be too much, we went in the lobby, and MJ had a seizure. Just like that, our night was over.
She was okay, thankfully. But understandably, she didn’t want to stay. So we left. And the mom guilt hit me hard.
Why did I keep going after what we witnessed in the parking lot? Why didn’t I recognize she might have already been overwhelmed? Did I put her in a situation that was too much for her? Was I so determined to give her a normal experience that I overlooked what she needed in that moment?
I don’t know if the events in the parking lot contributed to what happened later. But I do know that watching my daughter experience something frightening, followed by another seizure, left me questioning every decision I had made that night.
I wanted so badly for her to just be a nine-year-old girl at her first concert. Not a kid with a medical history. Not a kid whose mom has to constantly weigh the risks of everyday experiences. Just a girl enjoying live music.
And instead, we were heading home early. I felt like a terrible parent. I also felt guilty about the tickets. A friend helped make this possible, and here we were, leaving before the concert was even close to over.
I texted her, explained what happened, apologized for wasting her tickets, and told her how awful I felt.
But she saw something I couldn’t see through my guilt. She reminded me that MJ WANTED to go. That her eyes lit up when she talked about wanting to see Jelly Roll and Kane Brown. That concerts were something she wanted to experience.
And that the only way she was ever going to get there was to start small. She reminded me that MJ had tried.
That she had made it through the entire opening act. That she had gotten to hear a couple of Jamey’s songs. And that none of those things stopped being accomplishments just because we didn’t make it to the end.
She told me she was proud of MJ. And proud of me for trying. Then she said something that I think I needed to hear more than anything: “Baby steps. Parenting is hard. Even harder with a medical kiddo.”
And suddenly, I realized how much of the night I had been measuring by what went wrong instead of what went right. Because the truth is, MJ DID go to her first concert. She witnessed something frightening before we ever walked through the doors, and she still went inside.
She sat in that audience. She listened to live music. She made it through the opening act and into the headliner’s performance. She experienced something she had never experienced before.
And while I was busy feeling guilty about everything that happened afterward, I was overlooking everything she had accomplished beforehand.
That’s the tricky thing about parenting a child with medical challenges. You want to protect them from everything. You want to keep them safe, comfortable, and far away from anything that might trigger another frightening moment. But you also want them to LIVE.
You want them to go to concerts. To try new things. To have experiences that don’t revolve around doctors, medications, and what might go wrong.
You want them to have a childhood that is bigger than their medical history. And sometimes those two desires feel impossible to balance. Because when something goes wrong, it’s so easy to convince yourself that you should have just kept them home. That you should have played it safe. That maybe wanting something normal for your child was asking too much.
But I don’t want MJ’s childhood to be defined entirely by what we’re afraid might happen. I want her to have stories to tell. I want her to have pictures from her first concert. I want her to remember the excitement of the music, the lights, and the feeling of being part of something she had been looking forward to.
And yes, I wish the night had started differently. I wish she hadn’t witnessed that accident. I wish we could have stayed until the last song. I wish she could have walked out of that building with nothing but a smile on her face and ringing ears.
I wish seizures didn’t get to interrupt the things she loves. But they do. And I can’t change that.
What I can change is how I choose to remember Saturday night. I can remember it as the night everything went wrong. Or I can remember it as the night my girl witnessed something frightening, walked into her very first concert anyway, made it through the opening act, heard a few songs from the headliner, and took another step toward experiencing the world she wants to be part of.
Both stories are true. But one of them gives her the credit she deserves. And thanks to Lyndsey, I’m learning to see that.
Maybe someday MJ will go to a concert and stay for the whole thing. Maybe she’ll sing every word, dance until her feet hurt, and beg me to take her to another one. Maybe Saturday night was just the first step toward that. And maybe the next time we try, we’ll make it a little further.
But even if we don’t, I hope I remember that trying counts. That leaving early doesn’t erase the courage it took to show up. And that sometimes, the biggest victories aren’t measured by how long we stayed or how many songs we heard. They’re measured by the fact that we went at all.
MJ didn’t fail at her first concert. She HAD her first concert. And even though I wish I could have protected her from every hard moment of that night, I am so incredibly proud of her.
I’m learning sometimes being a mom means knowing when to hold her hand and walk into something new, and sometimes it means knowing when to take that same hand and walk back out.
Saturday night, we did both.
About The Author
