I Come From Dreamers
They cross from brilliant green Isles to shocking grey stoney streets. They come with old,
weathered hands and torn rag dolls, all hoping to come to a new future, the compromised, the
needed, the necessary change that makes us uproot and change our entire lives. They come
from Irish jig and roaring laughter to a place where the liveliest song rings false under the
harsh sky. They cross through.
They change from tattered rag to tattered rag, alternating one type of poverty for another, all in
the hopes that someday their grand children’s grand children will lead prosperous lives.They
did this for me.
And him, they made this decision for my Uncle, born into the cold that was Brooklyn in the
1940s. My dad calls the house that they grew up in “the worst house on the worst street in the
neighborhood.” As he tells me these stories he laughs at how they would light the furnace
only in winter, the coals having been too expensive to use to heat water all year round.
He tells me stories of selling circulars as a child too young to be working. They made an extra
few dollars to add to the christmas jar. This jar had all the magic of Santa, and was the only
way that my grandparents could afford to give their little boys a proper Christmas. Throughout
the years they would add any loose change they had to the jar and by the end of the year it
would have become large enough to create a warm and beautiful christmas.
His father, my grandfather, stood at gates in hopes of getting work each day. He was a piano
man in his heart, with a softness that the wind made harsh. He was quiet and stern from years
of working too hard for too little. My Grandmother was the fire in his eyes. She gave a light to
the world that had dimmed in my Grandfather too early. Her fire had to burn bright enough for
the two of them now.
Now my Uncle works in big business in a beautiful office on 34th and Madison. He passes the
signs that lead him back to Brooklyn and where everything started, how he worked tirelessly
through to the other side, from the dirtiest house on the dirtiest street to the clean fresh feeling
of the affluent. He is the American Dream.
I come from dreamers, people who push me through doors to get where I dream of going.
They all come from too little and not enough and made enough for themselves and that is my
origin story. I come from single mother, poor father, and their desperate attempt to push me
up to this big university where I can become something. They give me the same chances that
they worked so hard for. It’s nice to come from dreamers because they teach you not to
accept reality.
They cross from brilliant green Isles to shocking grey stoney streets. They come with old,
weathered hands and torn rag dolls, all hoping to come to a new future, the compromised, the
needed, the necessary change that makes us uproot and change our entire lives. They come
from Irish jig and roaring laughter to a place where the liveliest song rings false under the
harsh sky. They cross through.
They change from tattered rag to tattered rag, alternating one type of poverty for another, all in
the hopes that someday their grand children’s grand children will lead prosperous lives.They
did this for me.
And him, they made this decision for my Uncle, born into the cold that was Brooklyn in the
1940s. My dad calls the house that they grew up in “the worst house on the worst street in the
neighborhood.” As he tells me these stories he laughs at how they would light the furnace
only in winter, the coals having been too expensive to use to heat water all year round.
He tells me stories of selling circulars as a child too young to be working. They made an extra
few dollars to add to the christmas jar. This jar had all the magic of Santa, and was the only
way that my grandparents could afford to give their little boys a proper Christmas. Throughout
the years they would add any loose change they had to the jar and by the end of the year it
would have become large enough to create a warm and beautiful christmas.
His father, my grandfather, stood at gates in hopes of getting work each day. He was a piano
man in his heart, with a softness that the wind made harsh. He was quiet and stern from years
of working too hard for too little. My Grandmother was the fire in his eyes. She gave a light to
the world that had dimmed in my Grandfather too early. Her fire had to burn bright enough for
the two of them now.
Now my Uncle works in big business in a beautiful office on 34th and Madison. He passes the
signs that lead him back to Brooklyn and where everything started, how he worked tirelessly
through to the other side, from the dirtiest house on the dirtiest street to the clean fresh feeling
of the affluent. He is the American Dream.
I come from dreamers, people who push me through doors to get where I dream of going.
They all come from too little and not enough and made enough for themselves and that is my
origin story. I come from single mother, poor father, and their desperate attempt to push me
up to this big university where I can become something. They give me the same chances that
they worked so hard for. It’s nice to come from dreamers because they teach you not to
accept reality.