Summer Olympics 1992 and other stuff

Brenna was my constant shadow. As I was going through a box of photos the other night, I found this one. The 1992 Summer Olympics Torch was coming through town. As a member of city council in Twin Falls, Idaho, I joined with my fellow council members to carry the torch. Brenna wanted to come along. How proud she was to hold the torch with me. You can see the joy on her face.

During the time I was on city council, Brenna went with me to many meetings, not just council, but also planning and zoning. That was her choice. She absorbed knowledge on how a city was managed, who made the decisions, who had final say.

She would sit at the back of the room during meetings. If she became bored, she went down to the Engineering Department where they showed her how to run the CAD. She was so excited and a CAD system made it to her wish list.

The only time I would not allow her to come with me was on those occasions where citizen testimony would be heated with tempers flaring.

Other times, she would go over to the police department. The officers and dispatchers showed her how dispatch worked. She watched videos and they taught her the necessity to take care of herself.

When Brenna was a little girl, she got into a discussion with a neighbor girl over who owned the sidewalk. The neighbor girl had told Brenna that she couldn't walk on her sidewalk in front of her house. Brenna's little 7 year old self was quick to inform her that the sidewalk belonged to the city and no one could make her walk on the other side of the street.

When Brenna chose to go into Criminal Justice, I was happy for her. As she worked on assignments, I told her to think back to those days long ago. Think and use what she learned in her assignments. When class mates had heated discussions on what a police chief should do, Brenna knew that the police chief was the middleman between the police department and city management. And she knew that in most issues, the city council was the final authority.

I was blessed to have a child so interested in life at an early age.

Not long before her brain injury, we talked about all those meetings. I told her that at times I felt I had robbed her of her childhood by taking her with me. She said, "Mom, I wanted to go with you. I didn't want to play with the other kids."

I was blessed and her memories still bless me today.