About Dreaming . . .

I recently received an email from my younger brother in which he wrote, "After some 25 years of dreaming about it, I . . . have received a Fulbright Award for Spring ’09 and will be teaching and researching at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece."

What a dream come true for him, and for me. Of course, there is a big part of me that is terribly envious of the chance to actually live in the country of our heritage. But my better self is very proud of him and so happy he is seeing the realization of a dream.

Dreams, you know, are hard to realize by most folk. Dreaming a dream is easy - even healthy and life-affirming. But a dream actually becoming one's reality is something else altogether. I have dreamed so many dreams - most of them unrealized. One thing, though, that I have learned in my maturing years is that it is better to have dreamed and not realized your dream, than never to have dreamed at all!

So I am thrilled for my brother Andrew's dream.

He is going to teach various topics at the University, including race and religion in American presidential elections. He will, no doubt, also begin research on another book while there.

My brother and I are of Greek heritage, with relatives in Athens and elsewhere, so my brother's dream come true will undoubtedly result in some very important connecting with family he has never met.

In his email he also wrote, "It is not often that long-held dreams actually come true, but this time they have."

Needless to say, I am very glad that he has spent his life dreaming.

On that note, I am particularly proud of his study, research, writing and activism on the Civil Rights Movement in our country. I learned this week that he has been invited by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, to speak at the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site for the 52nd Anniversary of the 1957 desegregation events at the school.

So here's to dreaming! Maybe if I do it long enough, I will actually get to Greece myself during the time he is there.

If not, I'll see him when he comes to MY HOMETOWN in September to speak at the 52nd Anniversary of the desegregation of Central High.

Kathy Manis Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog