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What happens to us when a deeply loved dream dies?
Posters with stuck-in-a-jar kittens, agreed-upon national heroes, and determined turtles scream from my Facebook feed: “Never give up on your dreams!” “Try one more time!” “Just keep hanging on!” “When you fall seven times, stand up eight!”
But what happens after we’ve tried once more, stood up once more, gone further, and refused to give up ad infinitum until there is nothing left to give?
Platitudes are the glue that hold social media together. They find their way into our sermons, debates, breakfast conversation. We paste them on our walls, our cars, our coffee cups. They are our mantras, our prayers, our blue-faced battle cries. We tell ourselves this is hope. This is faith.
What if it’s just wishful thinking? What if it’s denial? What if a dream dies anyway, no matter how hard we try or how fiercely we fight or how solidly we stand?
Where are the words of comfort for that? Not on Facebook.
Knees are shattered at the height of athletic prowess. Vocal cords are botched during surgery. Reproductive abilities are raped by chemotherapy. Spouses leave. Children are lost to former children who perpetuate vicious patterns of abuse, molestation, and torture. The blink of an eye comes, and leaves ruin.
And what of those dreams that fade, like memories sapped by Alzheimer’s, fracturing and fragmenting themselves over decades until nothing is left. It’s a kind of dream dementia, wherein all the little defeats and setbacks and obstacles incrementally disconnect the dream from our souls, like a building falling apart brick by brick, until nothing remains but an empty shell. And we can’t remember why, once upon a time, we dreamed this dream.
When my father-in-law was dying of cancer, his wife asked the doctor for hospice. She knew the signs. She trained hospice workers for over a decade. She was a small woman in her 70’s alone in the house, caring for her 80 year-old husband whom she could not lift or carry to do the necessities of life. Emotionally, it was devastating; physically it was exhausting. And her doctor declined hospice for weeks and weeks. He wanted her to maintain hope that her husband would survive. Two days before he died, the doctor granted hospice. There is a fine line between optimism and denial, often costing precious energy better used to say goodbye.
Hope is a loaded word. So is faith. To say that one hasn’t enough faith or hope to prevent death of a loved one, or death of a dream, or even our own death, is a shameful indictment. Accusing ourselves or others for failure to believe hard enough while facing circumstances beyond our control is arrogant and mean and unfair.
(And please don’t tell me our losses are God’s will. I will jerk a knot in you. The God I believe in doesn’t torture small children, give cancer to young mothers, or shatter the talent of athletes and artists for the betterment of our universe. You or I would never do that, so please don’t say God would.)
As I approach the half-century mark in my life, the questions of broken and dying dreams swim in circles around me. I’ve seen dreams die in friends. I’ve seen friends and family die difficult deaths, and they left not wanting to die. In each instance they grasped at hope like a raft in a tempest, praying that the inevitable would not come. But it’s called inevitable for a reason.
With the crumbs of wisdom I’ve gleaned and gathered during my little life, I venture to say that hope is more than living to see our dreams come true. Faith is more than believing we will ultimately succeed or win or fulfill our calling. I think hope has more to do with grace than anything else; and faith has more to do with trust than with blind belief in our veracity. In the possibility that I lose my dream, in the likelihood that I will not claim every victory, and in the eventuality of my own demise and the demise of those around me – the blessing is that we are not lost in the losing. I still get to be me. And God loves me – not my dreams or achievements or lack thereof. Me. You. Us.
So pardon me if I don’t try one more time. I’m tired. I’m out for the count. I’ve called in hospice to help me let go of a few dreams so I can focus on other things in my life that are equally important. I want to enjoy the time I am granted with the people I love and in betterment of my community. I will grieve my dead dreams but I will not hope for their resurrection. My hope is that letting go means I can transform my talents into a new passion for places and people and things I have yet to discover. I have more to do – I can feel it – amazing, brilliant, redemptive creations lying in the bottom of my heart waiting to come alive. They are the new seedlings in the garden of my dreams. I’m giving them space to grow.
Again, this is beautifully written! Thank you for sharing your dreams, faith, hope and . . . the inevitable and a new way of looking at it. As many of the people I have met over the years at various stages of broken dreams have said, “this is the new normal”, that bespeaks acceptance and the letting go of the old and the cognizant realization that are current live including the modifications is our “new normal”. God bless!
Painfully true. Thanks.
Thanks, Paul. I’m a Molly Hatchet fan but didn’t know this one.
thanks terry – last time we met i shared with you a “dream deferred,” luckily we had good food and good wine to soften the blow 😉
And if grace and trust are the only fruits of our hope and faith, still a worthy investment!
Nice insights, Terry.
Terry, I’m sitting her sipping coffee, preparing to go offer a sermon filled with platitudes to a local congregation. I *know* there’s something more. Thanks for pointing the way. When I get home, I’m calling hospice to help me let go of some of those old dreams. It’s time.
I liked this very much – thanks again. Your blog also gave me what I needed this morning when I thought of calling in hospice when I need to let go of dreams but also of fears.
I’ve been dipping into yogic philosophy via Stephen Cope. He talks a lot about the place (generally midlife) where we hit the wall in which everything seems topsy turvy and our normal ways of dealing with life just aren’t working. The take on this is that it is the normal wakeup call to look at our perceptions of ourselves and life and re-examine them, in order to find a deeper and more fulfilling view of ourselves and existence.
( I’m not explaining this nearly as succinctly as he does, but it has helped me a lot)
This is by far more eloquently put than anything else I have read. Calling Hospice in for your dying dreams has to be the most powerful thing we could do…
There are very few people who get to truly live their dreams. We all suffer loosing our dreams. Some dreams never were going to come true. I have always wanted to be a singer, but since I can’t carry a tune that dream will never come true no matter how hard I work at it. Other dreams are lost because of physical situations. If I live in Florida I probably will never be a downhill skier no matter how much talent I have. Dreams often come true with a lot of luck. You are in the right place at the right time with the right talent. Dreams are often things we sit aside when life gets in the way. That is not always a bad thing. I don’t always believe in cliches but I do believe that when a door closes a window opens. New paths are forced on you and yes new talents and interest develop. Paths are forced to change.
As someone who has had someone very dear to me have a door slammed in his face I understand the getting up and trying again part. For him it worked out but luck was as much a part of it as hard work. Dreams die no matter how hard you work at it, or how talented you are. Find that window and crawl through and see what new things develop. You are being remolded like a potter who takes the same clay and reworks a pot that fell off the wheel. What he creates may be better than his original work. Its still the same clay. It wasn’t thrown away but reshaped. Water your new seedlings and let them grow!
Terry, your thoughtful prose has moved me to tears. I will have to think about why. I laughed too at your threats, (re: God’s will). I think you have picked up a lot more then “crumbs” of wisdom in your life. This is well done. Thank you for sharing. God does love you for you. Indeed, how could he not?!
Aww, Bob – thank you. That is very kind of you to say. I’m glad you like my little words. I only wish for them to find the folks who need them like I do…..