Dreams

My wife and I had our first child about 15 months ago, shortly after moving to Selma. Fatherhood has been one of the great learning experiences of my life, and I've consistently been awed by the growth of our little one and humbled by the many occasions where my interactions with her highlight the need for further growth in myself.

One of the memories I expect I'll have with me for the rest of my life was the day my daughter was born. I imagine I could write fifty blog posts about the unique experiences of that day. I'll limit myself to one for now.

After she went through the bathing and vaccinating regimen that follows birth and came back to Mom and me, the little one was pretty tired. I watched her as she first dozed, then went into deep sleep. She lay there peacefully, her eyes dancing back and forth under her eyelids. It had been quite some time since I had watched someone sleep, but I remembered learning somewhere that what I was observing is called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and is the sleep phase commonly associated with dreaming.

I remember being struck by this. What, I wondered, could a child who had lived all of three hours in this world possibly have to dream about?

In the intervening months, I've been witness to many wonder-filled firsts, from her first smile to her first tentative steps, and even her first successful try at using the potty. She's mastered her balance and her first hundred or so words and is growing quickly into quite a little lady. I no longer wonder what the stuff of her dreams is, as she has an active imagination and a year's worth of experiences to draw on.

In addition to the joys of raising up our little one, I've had the great privilege of getting to meet and spend time with a group of Selma's young people in the past year. About a week ago, I found myself in a room full of boys ranging in age from 12 to 19. They're in one of the key formative stages of their young lives, and we got to talking about their dreams.

A couple of the older boys started sharing about the interactions they've had with a few Freedom Foundation volunteers who have invested a lot in them. Both boys reported a renewed sense of hope from the experiences of the past year. One said that for the first time in his life, he could see a future for himself as something other than a professional athlete, a rapper, or a drug dealer. The odds of anyone making it big in pro sports or the music industry are pretty slim, so the last of this trio of options, while the least appealing, is also the most likely for a young person with such a limited pool of dreams.

I left our time that night thinking about the power of dreams. Not pie-in-the-sky, never-gonna-happen fantasies or sickly, this-is-the-best-you-can-hope-for nightmares, but grand dreams bolstered by the substance of positive experience. Once dream-deprived young people begin to learn that they're capable of more than what they've seen and done in the past, the trajectory of their future tends to change radically. Suddenly, they find themselves asking questions like “Who says I have to settle for the mold society tries to force me into when it doesn't represent who I am?” and “Why couldn't I go to college—even if no one in my family has before?” and “What's to say I can't turn out to be a great dad and a supportive husband?”

As for those two boys who shared about their new set of dreams? One is a first-year student at a local college. He's a natural leader, a nonconformist, and an increasingly positive influence on those around him. The other, a junior in high school, has learned to drop the hard façade he used to hide behind to protect himself and fit in among his peers. He's rediscovering the freedom to be the sensitive young man who got lost in the transition from junior high to high school. Both have sweet hearts, as evidenced by the ways they interact with little Sophia—I'm finding that as her dad, I'm developing a sense for when someone really loves her. I'd say they make a fine pair of older brothers, and I sure hope as she grows up they'll help teach her to dream big.