“At last…”
“I had a dream that I could speak to. I had a dream I could call my own.”
Etta Jones song
Why do I weep when I watch my daughter sing this on her college video? I weep because I see such promise, such passion. Promise, like a parent’s pride, is a heavy, too heavy, burden to bear when you’re young. Because it’s tied into other people’s expectations. Hopes and dreams. I was lucky in this respect. I grew or stumbled into promise and passion somewhat late in life. Which is why I try to be so careful when it comes to projecting hopes onto the shoulders of my children. Shoulders that are not yet strengthened or broken by the weight of too much disappointment. But watching my daughter sing and thinking of my son, of the gifts that he also possesses, I’m torn. Torn between a longing to shout for joy and the suspicion that such a shout will alert the gods and bring their wrath down upon my house. So instead, I whisper. I whisper and I wish so hard that my children find a dream to speak to. A dream to call their own.
I also wish my son could sleep….
I understand this at a cellular level, Brenda. This same feeling is coursing through my blood. On Tuesday evening, I couldn’t shout and couldn’t even whisper so I wrapped myself up in a blanket and watched sad movies in the dark and cried for hours.
I gotta say that “cried for hours” was too harsh a phrase. Too dramatic. “Wept” would’ve worked better, but I didn’t want to steal your word.
crying, weeping, howling. however you choose to say it, BG. It’s wonderful to know that I’m not the only one! Happy Halloween!