The Death of a Dream

My favorite game growing up was “The Game of Life.” I still like it. I played it yesterday.

Players start out with different color cars and cruise through the big choices of life: Will I go to college, or start a career? Borrow tuition, or get a job? Graduate? Career? Salary. Pay taxes. Vote. Choose a spouse. Get engaged. Get married. Buy a starter home. Have babies (limit two). Go back to school? Lose job. Change career. Sue. Get sued. Send kids to sports camp? Upgrade home? Buy lakeside cabin? Become a grandparent. Visit the Great Wall of China? Collect pension. Retire at Millionaire Estates, or Countryside Acres?

The game is so good and has lasted so long because we are born dreamers. We visualize the unfolding of our life from early-early. If it happens like we hope it’s great, but if it crumbles under our feet it’s an earthquake.

Ken Moses is a psychologist whose specialty is working with parents of “impaired” children. He interned in a Chicago Hospital. During his first week he met with a group of parents. He began by asking them to describe their children.

“We went around the room and everybody talked. I had never seen such emotional extremes: anxiety, denial, anger, betrayal, depression, rage, sadness, resentment. So much pain. People cried easily. Guilt poured out.”

He went back to his office wondering what was going on. The parents had shown all the classic signs of grief, but no one had died. The next week he went back to the group and told them he didn’t understand their grief.

“Your children are alive!” he told them.

Over the next few weeks those parents taught him that what had died was their dream of who and what their children would become.

One mother wanted to be a dancer but her conservative parents said no. So when she married and became pregnant she was sure she would have a daughter with long legs and grace. Her daughter would become the dancer she never was. Her daughter was born with cerebral palsy.

Dr. Moses had dreams for his son. He would become the baseball player Ken couldn’t because of rheumatic fever. His son was born blind.

“I had dreams for this boy,” he said. “Dreams of who he was supposed to be. But if he is blind it won’t happen like I dreamed. Then what am I supposed to do, and how?

What do we do when our children can’t, or won’t, realize the dreams we have for them? Or a friend, spouse, or colleague? How do we cope?

Some cry alone. Others believe dreams aren’t real enough to cry over. But we all know what it is to watch a dream die.

Go ahead and grieve. These deaths are as real as any loss we experience.