The Moth Podcast: The Science Festival ...... and waking at 3:33 am

I listen to podcasts a lot....I mean     A.  LOT.    I listen to and from work and I listen when I can't sleep at night.  Last night I couldn't sleep.  I chose The Moth Radio Hour.  

The episode is called; "The Science Festival".  

I only listened to two of the talks before falling off to sleep.  The first talk was given by a neuroscientist.  It was about using emotional anchors to help make and maintain memories.  The speaker's father had Alzheimer's disease.  This struck me because brains are my passion and so many of the people I work with during my day job suffer from Alzheimer's.  What luck! when all I could read of the Podcast, without my glasses, and at 3:33am, was the title of the talk but no description.    

But it was the second talk that really moved me and kept me riveted in my bed.

The description of the second talk reads as follows: 

"A boy attempts to take control of  his life by planning the perfect Bar Mitzvah".

So you may ask, 

"How in the world does this topic relate to you, Stephanie, when you are not Jewish and you are indeed not a boy?"

The boy's brother suffered from epilepsy.  He had seizures in the middle of the night and was brought to the emergency room for each one.  The child slept in his parents' room so they could keep him safe.  His healthy sibling (the speaker) struggled to find some control in his life.  This family, like most families dealing with epilepsy, held their breath and lived from seizure to seizure.

His story could have been ours.

I know there are a LOT of us out there who can relate.