"Dream On"

Dream on!

It is so quiet around here. Something is missing. What's gone?

Oh, that would be the 173 family and friends who came to Kaia and Annika's graduation parties a year ago. The watermelon fruit bowl. The five-foot long submarine sandwich. Bowls and bowls of chips. Paper plates and napkins that blew from kingdom come in a record windy afternoon. And confetti that filled the park and lodged in such odd spots that I'm guessing some soccer goalie chasing a ball found some yet this spring.

What a wonderful, noisy and loving celebration! A whole year ago.

And in that year, dreams have come true. Dreams have been deferred. Dreams have been dished, dumped, and alterred.

And some dreams have been dashed. I have nothing at all specific in mind but it is always inevitable. It happens to all of us. We don't see all of our dreams, large or small, exotic or common, profound or banal come true.

While I was whooping it up yesterday, poking back at the nightmares that had kept me up nights as a kid, the Rapture and that not all would be ready, others were feeling the devastating deflation that accompanies a dream that is dashed. Truth be told, a part of me wants to say, duh. Or, what fools you mortals be; presuming to predict a plan that is far beyond our designs.

And a small, compassionate corner of my heart has been claimed by a surprising sense of compassion. What do you do the day after you've been dumped? Defeated? Deflated? After you sold all you had to print pamphlets and put up billboards. There will be recalculations, the math was off, and recriminations -- we liquidated our kids' college funds for what? But somehow for all those whose hopes are turned to ash, life will go on. They will figure out a way. A way to go on. Rationalizations. New passions. Denial and numbness. Nose to grind stone.

We all know something about having our dreams dashed.

And that is yet another reason to be tender of one another, to be kind, gentle, patient, and, still again, hopeful.

What do we do when dreams die? We go on.

The dream has died. Long live the dream.