She Was A Dreamer

She was a dreamer, back when she was young.

She didn’t dream of “freedom” or “equality” like the visionaries, but she was a dreamer nonetheless.

She dreamed of growing up strong and beautiful, ready to take on the world. She dreamed of falling in love with a soldier who would take her for his wife, and of making his house a home. She dreamed of having children who would make snowmen together in the coldest weeks of January while she made them hot chocolate and cookies and who would always pass the dishes to the right. She dreamed that when they were grown they would have happy children of their own who would collect roly-polys in peanut butter jars when they came to her house over summer break and always say please and thank you. She dreamed that when she was old, her children and grandchildren would gather in the family room and spend countless rapturous hours listening to her tales and teachings, like she had when her grandparents were alive. She dreamed that when she was dead, she would still be remembered and cherished in their hearts.

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She did grow up to marry a soldier and have his children. The kids did play in the yard and always pass dishes to the right, and they did grow up to have children of their own who hunted bugs under rocks and said please and thank you, and she was happy. But as she grew old, a feeling of urgency crept forward from where it had been lurking in the back of her mind. She had lived many years, through love and war and the deaths of her parents and siblings and husband. She needed to tell her children and grandchildren all she had learned, and pass on the tradition of teaching that had always been.

And so she tried to tell her story, to pass on her wisdom. But they said, “We have no time for tales of the past. The past is gone.”

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And so she taught in bits and pieces, here and there, to one descendant at a time. When she tried to tell a story or teach a lesson, however, her grandchildren would sigh and turn away, rolling their eyes. “We know, Grandma,” they would say. “We heard you the first time.” But they hadn’t listened. They hadn’t listened, and so they hadn’t understood what she had meant. They barely remembered what she had said aloud. In all her years, she had gained true wisdom, and all she wanted was to pass it on. But they turned to their phones and their internet, and they did not listen.

When she died, she was forgotten.