Dreams

Quoted from "A lantern in Her Hand" "All my girlhood I always planned to do something big...something constructive. It's funny what ambitious dreams a girl has when she is young. I thought I would sing before big audiences or paint lovely pictures or write a splendid book. I always had that feeling in me of wanting to do something worth while. And just think, Laura...now I am eighty and I have not painted nor written nor sung." "But you've done lots of things, Grandma. You've baked bread..and pieced quilts..and taken care of your children." Old Abbie Deal patted the young girl's hand, "Well..out of the mouths of babes. That's just it, I've only baked bread and pieced quilts and taken care of children. But some women have to, don't they?..But I've dreamed dreams, Laura..All the time I was cooking and patching and washing, I've dreamed dreams. And I think I dreamed them into the children and the children are carrying them out..."

Occasionally I feel like this. I may not be eighty, but feel like life is passing me by. Then as I rock my little grandson Jake to sleep I think what could be more important than this? I may not have quilted or baked that well. But I gardened, hopefully teaching my kids to love flowers..and I read and cuddled and rocked my children, I listened and encouraged them to dream their dreams and taught them to fly... to have faith in themselves..

I taught them to wonder about life and find their answers. I love being a mother. I can't sing anymore, and I can't paint very well, but maybe there is a book in there somewhere....