a milestone...

i don't know why i can't picture kiley as a doctor. i really, really want to. after all, she is a pretty wonderful one. i can just think about it, the "dr. kirksey" part, and i laugh! of course i know she is extremely gifted and dedicated to helping others like she always has been, but mainly i picture her napping for hours on the couch, watching days of our lives while eating cheese dip, or doing the "cyclone" (a vulgar-when-done-properly dance move that mandy apparently stole from a rap video.) hell, i have had entire conversations with her where all she did was meowed. but not kiley, she doesn't have my luxury of not putting a label on it, on her. she is living it daily. every morning she is knee deep in the reality of her life as dr. kirksey. she is relied on for this very title.

and i guess i am not the only one that thinks it is so funny. the closer you are to kiley, the more absurd the thought is i think. mandy called me tonight in a hysterical fit. she met kiley for dinner. and after a long meal of horrible service, wrong orders, forgotten condiments, and no silverware, kiley handed her visa over to the socially awkward server. according to mandy, she excitedly ran back yelling, "dr.kirksey!?" both mandy and kiley were stunned for a moment. mandy pointed at kiley, with what i can only imagine was her "i am about to loose it but i can't laugh in church" face. kiley blushed and smiled as the server told her how she knew her name, how she was a dispatcher at the hospital, how she is going to be roommates with one of the current dispatchers. next kiley said under her breath as her newest friend walked off, "guess i am going to have to give her a good tip now." (but to clarify for those of you who don't know kiley well, she most definitely would have given her a good tip anyways, probably an even better tip than normal since she could tell she was so nervous at a new job.)

so after tonight, there is just no hiding it any longer... kiley is a doctor! she is a doctor at the hospital, in public, in her private life now too, in her very nature long before the well earned title.

i am not sure why it has taken me so long to acknowledge it. maybe it is because i didn't need this milestone to think you are wonderful and successful. i have been proud of you since you could do my homework and could read before you went to school. i have loved you deeply even before my first memories of you following me into creek beds and wildflower fields. i have needed you way before the extended family had so many questions for you about strange moles or rashes or sore muscles or cancer. i have always thought you were as unique and free-thinking and uncharacteristically carefree for your new title as you have been intelligent and well read and rewarded for your academic success. i have loved you so many years now more than this single one that has flown by so fast. i am proud of you for holding children on your lap when you examine their mothers, for gripping old women's hands when they lay in a hospital bed and repeat to you the same story over and over and over when your peers are completing rounds much faster. i am proud of you for listening, really genuinely listening to your patients. this is what i am proud of, this is what defines you for me anyways. this has been you, your entire life!! so, sorry if i laugh. it is only because the kind of doctor that makes you great is exactly the same thing that makes you kiley!! but "dr. kirksey", it gets me everytime!