Thankful Thursday: Short Interactions Can Become Big Moments with Time

Short interactions can become big moments with time.

I first met Leigh Goldie, M.Ed. while walking the exhibition hall at AES in December 2025. I'd decided to stop at every stand to see the full range of work being done in epilepsy. What struck me was her openness in sharing her own experience with epilepsy, and how she'd channeled it into something positive through Empowering Epilepsy®.

I didn't realize that the next day, she would be an invited speaker at our Impact Epilepsy event. Afterward, we agreed we'd find a way to work together. Tonight, we did.

I was told not to prepare for her session as the content expert, so I didn't. I wasn't prepared, though, for how the experience would empower me. Hearing people talk about the impact of simply showing up, without an agenda, made the weight of this work real to me in a new way. Hearing someone describe what it meant to see a Black epileptologist reaffirmed why representation in medicine matters.

Sometimes we make things complicated when they're actually simple. Simple doesn't mean easy, but it can still have a big impact.

Jonathan Williams, MD

Adult Epileptologist 

WashU Medicine

St. Louis, Missouri