Thank you, Gilmore Girls.

I thank those Gilmore Girls for helping me create a strong bond with my daughter and the opportunity to reflect on one of the most important relationships in my life. Go figure.  A show about a single mom and her "more-grown-up-than-her-mom-is" daughter who live in the 'perfect' small town. Oh, and they eat only junk food and yet, stay healthy.  Granted, not much reality-based storyline going on here, and certainly my own relationship with my kid doesn't look like it, but it did create an opportunity for the two of us to really connect.

My closest, most loving relationship is with my 11 year old (going on 27) daughter, Lila.  She teaches me so much through our relationship.  Together, we learn how much we suck as humans, how loving we are to others, and how to question life experience in a way to better understand our faults and our gifts.  We teach each other - in different ways - but we are both teacher and student to one another.  It is in this relationship that I have begun to learn how to be vulnerable, to be present, to be compassionate, to use boundaries, and to know love.

Netflix released the series, The Gilmore Girls, about a year ago.  I never watched it when it was broadcasting on 'real' television. When I heard it was available to watch online, I thought it might be fun to watch it with Lila.  It quickly became our Friday night ritual that included pizza, french fries and popcorn (just like Lorelai and Rory).  We enjoyed our own post-show analysis that included 'what was Luke thinking?' and how the storyline was pretty much made up. But we didn't care if it wasn't real.  How we loved this time together and when something came up that prevented us from watching it, we both felt the loss of the time that was ours to share with one another. I recall a night when, by the time we got home, it was too late for the junk food. Lila started to cry because that wasn't how it was done.  We had to eat that food while we caught up with the girls.  I made the pizza, the french fries and the popcorn.

As we 'binged' watched seven years of episodes over the course of a year, we both agreed to never watch it without one another nor would we ever eat salad while watching it (what would Lorelai and Rory think?!?!).  We stuck to these agreements up until the very last episode.

Watching the final episode was bittersweet. We wanted to know how it all ended but what would we do now that our beloved Stars Hollow family were no longer hanging out with us each week?  But more importantly, what about our precious 'mommy/daughter time' what was our 'Girl's Night In'? Well, leave it to my brilliant Lila to figure it out:  we would start watching a new show that caught her fancy: Dr. Who!!!!

Now, every Friday night we are together, we watch the good doctor and Rose (we are still in Season 2 right now) and eat our junk food.  We also talk about the episodes and 'What if this happened in real life? What would we do if _____?'.  More importantly, the unspoken stuff remains:  our love of just being with each other.  This is what this time is really all about.  This is the good stuff.

Actually, in the words of our beloved doctor, it is "FANTASTIC!". Thank you, Doctor.  That is the best medicine.  Ever.