Whirlwind of Dreams

I fell in love with my whirlwind of dreams

So many different plans branching out to extremes

To climb above mountains and see the view from the top

To run across fields without having to stop

To dance in bare feet without scraping my skin

To face fights with courage enough for me to win

These are the dreams that I dreamt as a child

A time when imagination roamed free and wild

A time when there weren’t limits on what could be

A time when there weren’t goals too high for me

A time before I learnt how life operates

That there is nothing guaranteed, save sorrow and hate

Opportunity’s buffet will make you pay dear

For, once you start eating, you’ll become stuffed with fear

Fear that success can be lost in half the blink of an eye

And fear that everything might fall through if you prematurely die

This knowledge puts a dampener on the dreams I used to love

And now I walk with my eyes forward, not somewhere in clouds above

Yet sometimes I still visit my whirlwind of dreams

In the middle of the night, when nothing’s quite as it seems

That’s when I can fantasise of what might have been

If I’d let go of restraint, and embraced the whole me

But sometimes I hear it knocking, that dreamer I miss,
Frozen behind the corner like it’s staring into an abyss

Well, I guess abyss is the best word for a dream that’s been destroyed

The stupid dreams I dared to have for a future I couldn’t avoid

Make Me Proud

“Do you think they’re watching us?” whispered Zara. “Do you think they can see me?”

“Of course,” said her mother, kissing the top of her head.

“Do you think they’d be…proud?”

“Of course,” the mother repeated, this time turning Zara to look into her eyes. “They’d be very proud of you, darling.”

Zara looked back up at the sky, the stars twinkling in a sea of fading gray. “Tell me more about them,” she asked, the sleepiness in her voice growing weaker with each second. “Nonna and Nonno and Papa and…”

The mother pulled Zara into her chest. Zara relaxed slightly, feeling the firm beat palpable through the mother’s thin night clothes.

“They loved you. Very much,” said the mother, her voice breaking towards the end. “Very, very much.”

“And I love them, too,” said Zara. “Even if they weren’t proud, I’d still love them.”

“They’ll always love you,” said the mother. “Just like I will.”

A nurse walked through the door. “The surgeon’s ready, ma’am.”

“Well, then,” said the mother. “We mustn’t keep him waiting. Be good, Zara.”

“I will, Mama. I’ll make you proud.”

 

“I’ll make you proud…”

That was the last time Zara ever saw her mother. The cold, forbidding hospital room with a single window giving mother and daughter one last glimpse of the night sky succumbing to the dawn. A strange omen, isn’t it? To have the dusk of a life masked by the light of a new day? Sunrise, sunset…every day is bittersweet, because for every dawn that comes our way, another dusk follows. There is no peace. No hope. No change.

But what we do in the daylight is what’s important.

And Zara’s last promise was one she never broke.

“I will, Mama. I’ll make you proud.”