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Hey, it's Britt. If you just found this show, you're going to want to start at episode one. This is the true story of my life. I changed some names and details to protect the innocent. It is marked explicit. The Kanan story is only one part of it. Here's the rest. I mean, who gets the story of their wife's death wrong? You probably think this story is about you. I'm Brittany Ard, and this story is mine.
As I continued to search, there were all these articles about his son where she was quoted very much alive. Each of the women that I've talked to has their own version of his story on how his ex-wife died, if she even died at all.
I worked with people living with a specific illness, and so that's what I've done for about 15 years now. And he said that his son's mother, so his ex-wife, also had that illness, and so she had committed suicide because of her diagnosis. She had gotten in a car crash and died in Hawaii, and his son was in Hawaii alone, basically. He was in the Middle East.
And then he received a phone call that his ex-wife had overdosed and his son was in the car with her. Our conversations would be, he has a brother and then it's, no, he has a sister. He had to get honorably discharged from the military and move back to Hawaii to take care of his son until he graduated. They rushed them both to the hospital and she was in shock.
in a coma for another two to three months. She died this way and no, she died that way. We all were like, no, we know the real version of him. And he said something about he felt guilty, like that he didn't do enough to like help her. And that's why one of the reasons she might commit suicide. And so he wanted to work with that population as well. And now I'm finding out she's wonderfully alive. I have found out that she is still alive and well and not living with that illness.
Each one of them was convinced that it was true. None of us knew the real version of him. Still don't. I've met 14 other women that have the same experience with Kanan as mine. I'm positive there's more. He had no regard for what would happen to any of the people in his life if he was exposed. If...
His son found out that he was telling people that his mom was dead. I cannot imagine how painful that would be to that child. And something that I think that people like him do, they learn enough about a person to control them, but not enough to actually care. Or they just don't care. And he made me feel special,
even though he didn't know my story, which is a really incredible power. There's a lot more to talk about than him. We will get back to Canaan, and I will tell you everything. But like I said, this is my story. Life is so fascinating because if you, I would imagine we're all full of these threads. And if you start
If you start pulling on them, some of them don't quit. They just, like those sweaters, they just keep undoing until you've got a big ball of yarn. You've got to start over again. I started from a very young age wanting to make sure that the people around me felt special and loved and cared for. And it is my superpower now. Whether it's my own biological children or friends,
the children I adopted, or my friend's daughter who is struggling and came and lived with me for a few years. I think that every person deserves to feel special, loved, and cared for. And it's such a basic thing. As a child, I started that one. Papa, look at this. What is it? There's another buggy in there. It really all started with my sister, Braylee. Two.
I was the funny one, just to be clear. She was creative. I was the funny one. I usually describe her as the good kid, such a happy kid. And she was always creating some sort of art, whether it was drawing or painting or poetry or the violin. She just had this way of
sharing herself through whatever medium she decided to do that day.
When my sister was born, I was six years old. She did not leave my hip until I physically couldn't carry her anymore. And I did her parent-teacher conference when I was 10 years old because my mom was unable to go to it. I took her to the dentist. I was eight, and we walked to the dentist together. And the dentist wasn't doing a good job, and I could hear her crying from the lobby. And I went back, and I yelled at the dentist, and I was like,
This is a child, like stop it. My sister and I lived with my mom full time. She had full custody. We lived in a different state. My dad and I were always really close.
My mother, she was an addict, and she told me, I don't want to say it was every day, but it probably felt like every day for the first 11 years of my life that all of her problems were because she had children. That she would be happy, she wouldn't be drinking, she wouldn't be doing drugs, she'd have money, she'd have all of these things, but she got knocked up and had kids. Lisa was real smart and cunning and
a devious, evil being. She did it to her friends, she did it to her kids, her husband, she did it to her family. She didn't just single us out and bring us into this darkness. She spread it everywhere she went. I tried to convince friends of mine to have their girlfriends not hang out with this cool looking girl that looked like she was
everybody wants to go hang out with because it killed every one of their relationships immediately, every time. It is hard for me to listen to my dad say these things about my mom, but I take it with a grain of salt. I know how heartbroken he had been and how hard it was for him to move past that relationship.
In conversations that I've had with my dad lately, we both agree that understanding how people do the best they can in the situations that they can really helps us move forward in our lives. So that's what Brittany grew up with was as a female role model mother. If you know Brittany as a mom, you would imagine she came from granny.
Granny is my dad's mom. She has been a huge influence in my life. So much of my confidence in business and in raising a family comes from her. And Granny is who started Sunday Dinner over 30 years ago. Brittany was luckily smart enough to clearly see what not to do. And that's, her and I have talked about that a little bit, is
If your mother told you, taught you anything, it's what not to do. It's the only way I can think of to be grateful on some level of, I mean, something. She had to give you something, so she showed you what not to do, I guess. I was talking to my therapist about my mom, and he made a comment, sort of,
under the, you know, she's just a bad person. And I said, she has friends. She has people that love her. She has a life outside of what my version of her is. So it was never nurturing. There wasn't like cuddles or, you know, like those sorts of things, but she was fun. I mean, she was always the life of the party. So we had fun times together and
She was so intelligent and talented, an amazing pianist and designer. Since my mom died last August, I've been back three or four times to go through her house and settle her estate, helping my grandfather tie up the loose ends.
Going through the house of a person that you're supposed to be deeply connected to, but you haven't had a relationship with for over 20 years is eerie. There were so many pieces of artwork that she had done, journals, photo albums, and things that documented how full her life was. In my story,
She was just that absent mother. Somewhere in my head, I had the thought that she's just spent the last 20 years sitting in a corner alone without children. But she's lived this amazing life. And there's so much depth to who she was that I really didn't know.
It wasn't really until after she died and I started going through her house that I realized that I didn't just miss a childhood. I missed what it's like to have a mother as an adult. All of the times that I'm sharing with Brianna now of us traveling together and talking about dating or talking about life together.
and future stuff. And that's an entirely different relationship. That, I think, is what I've been mourning the last nine months.
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I mean, she was just this beautiful, full-of-life human that had so much potential. Whether you want to call it demons or thoughts or whatever it was in her brain that she couldn't sort of quiet, she was just a beautiful, full-of-life human.
she did with drugs and alcohol. I was thinking about it a lot when I was at her house this weekend. Like, she would draw you in. People were immediately attracted to her. She was from the big city, and she came into Rexburg, which is this tiny little sleepy country town, and, like, mowed through it. My dad and I were always really close.
He had been trying to get custody of us for years, but it was back in the days when dads didn't get custody. And my mom's side of the family had more money. My sister and I were living in Arizona with my mom and my stepdad, who my stepdad was amazing. I mean, had it not been for him in the household, my childhood would have also been very different. And even having a mother like I did, we always had a house.
The family had money, so we were never without. I was usually the one cooking, but there was always food. It could have been so much worse. I started talking to the school counselor. My dad was pushing harder for custody and trying to figure out ways to get custody. Lisa had been having issues. She was living with the girls, but we knew that Brittany was in charge of feeding them.
these sort of things. And she's 10 years old. So she's calling up, "Granny, how do you make macaroni and cheese? How do you do this? I need to eat. Braylee needs to eat. We need to eat." And mom's down to the bar. And it was a lot of me having to journal and keep track of things that were happening, bad things that were happening at the house so that my dad could use it in court. And
So I was talking to the school counselor and then school counselor talked to my dad. I would go into the counselor's office and talk to my dad on the phone for like two hours because my mom wouldn't let me. It wasn't getting anywhere. It wasn't changing anything. My sister and I were still stuck there and it was getting worse with my mom. So there would be
a day and a half where she would just lock herself in her room. I knew she was in there, but she wouldn't answer. And there were times where I would break down the door because I didn't know if she was dead. My 13-year-old brain just wanted to get out, mainly for my sister. I kept my sister away from all of that. So one night, it was a Thursday night because 90210 was on. I know that.
I took Braylee to the neighbors. She was seven at the time. And I was like, can you just, you know, watch her? My mom's at the bar. I need to figure out how to get her back. So I was home alone. I don't even know how I made the decision. But I drank a bottle of furniture polish. Murphy's lemon oil furniture polish. I needed to do something dramatic so that the authorities or somebody recognized that I had to get my sister out of the house.
And it was the only thing I could think of to do. I had called my best friend. She had said something and I was like, you know, I just really love you. And thanks. Because I spend a lot of time at their house with my sister. And however I said it or whatever I said, she felt uncomfortable and told her parents. And they called the police. The cops came, an ambulance came, and I went to the hospital. This is at
about nine or 10 o'clock at night. Deadly part of the furniture polish is not it ingesting it. It's if the fumes get into your lungs. And so they can't do typical like pumped or stomach stuff because it's the access to the lungs that would have caused death. They couldn't do like emergency services on me because I was a minor and it wasn't like I was on the verge of death in that second.
They called my mom, and by calling my mom, I mean I told them what bar she was at, because she was always there, and they called the bar. She showed up at 2.30 after the bars closed and was so drunk that she was unable to sort of speak, and she stumbled in. Hammered, kind of demanding, where's my child? I had to take her home. And they...
politely or not, I don't know, invited her not to come here ever again. Get out. The nurse that had been staying with me got her to sign the papers and then kicked her out, essentially, and called Child Protective Services. I went into the hospital. I was there, I think, for three or four days. And during that time, CPS came and I talked to them a lot. I got a phone call that Brittany's in the hospital in Arizona.
And so we both got on the plane, went down there to see. He was just there instantly. CPS was there. The hospital and that staff, and I think the CPS person, kind of clued me in on what had been going on and what brought me up to speed on what had been happening. Then Gordon came back. Gordon is my grandpa on my mom's side. The CPS lady told him and I both that
whatever you guys decide, it's up to you looking at me, but these girls will not go back to that house, period. But whatever causes a child to do anything, to drink enough of anything, to make you sick and be in the hospital as a potential suicide,
in my opinion, is a severe cry for help. And hopefully no more than that. Because we know Brittany and you couldn't convince me that she's ever wanted to die.
I didn't want to die. I didn't, thankfully. And it worked, unfortunately. It did what it needed to do, which was get us out of the house and into a safe house, which was my dad's. I felt like her being in the hospital and that whole situation was her way to get out
me down there and get them, Brittany and Braylee, back to Seattle. I would say it was premeditated, it was conscious, it was deliberate, and it was very effective because that's how Brittany does it. It's not a mistake that her grandfather and me were standing in that room talking to CPS. She needed that whole situation to be so clear
We changed our whole lives. Got out of the hospital and we went to the house. My mom wasn't there. I'm sure my grandparents had taken her somewhere and we packed up stuff and that was it. And I didn't talk to my mom or see her for about a year. I could not imagine my children having to even have those thoughts or make that choice. If one of my children was in the hospital
I would have been there, you know, 10 seconds after they got there. And I can't imagine what runs through the brain of a person who knows your child is in the hospital and stays and drinks at the bar for four more hours. When Braylee was born, I didn't plan on becoming this mom person to her. It wasn't a decision. It was something
Today she needs breakfast or today she has to go to the dentist. It created something in me that needed to make sure that she was always okay or not even okay, but thriving. All I ever wanted was to hang out with her. She brought so much joy to my life.
as a big sister. Whatever happened to create the dynamic that I had with Braylee was so...
because we didn't fight. There was no competition. It was about spending time watching this amazing little human create herself. And it was also playing Barbies. And there were bad times, scary times, and sad times where it was about comforting each other
And just knowing that regardless, we had each other. It wasn't about our situation. It was about us. And it was about us having the best life that we could and to enjoy our childhood while experiencing, you know, everything else. It's almost like when they talk about you, you're talking with someone or you meet someone or, you know, you fall in love and everything else just goes away. ♪
Braylee and I were in the eye of the storm. We're in the eye of the tornado and everything is happening around us, but it didn't matter because we had each other and there's all the rest of it's just noise and it could be scary or there could be bad things, but it wasn't about that. It was about us.
You probably think the stories about you is a production of large media. That's L-A-R-J media. Our executive producer is Brittany Yard.
Our showrunner is Sid Gladue. Creative direction by Tina Noll. Our associate producer is Kareem Kiltow. Sound engineering by Chris Young and Sean Simmons. Graphic design by Najela Shama. Opening theme by Youth Star and Miscellaneous. If you want to know more about Brit, follow her on social media. You can find her at britney.ard on all platforms. If you like what we're doing, don't forget to hit that follow button wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. And also, give us a rate,
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