Samsmom: Life, Joy, Loss and Loving your Mitochondria

I sometimes forget when the working world has a national holiday….

I also sometimes hold full-length conversations with myself. Today I was remembering the national holiday and talking to myself….

9:00 this morning I remembered it was Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. Quite a man. Do you know he was only 39 when he was assassinated?

I turned 39 on Saturday. I certainly don’t feel old. I always thought powerful, thoughtful people had to be older than I am….someone with a couple more years under their belt. I certainly don’t feel empowered enough to move mountains, people and ideas the way MLK did. Perhaps I need to get a move on.

So what is your dream? My little voice said this morning over a cup of Starbucks.

Oh, for Samantha to be happy and healthy

Phhhhffffff…she’s happy and healthy now. Really, if you could shoot for the moon, what would it be?

So I shot for the moon….We would be able identify the mutated gene, the one causing all of the problems. And doctors would fix that gene; either through stem cells or some other sort of therapy. And Samantha would be fine. She would walk. She would talk. That nasty mutation would be fixed. That, is my dream. I have a dream And I felt so idealistic for even voicing that thought.

And then my little voice said Many of those people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial who heard Dr. King make that empowering speech in 1963 never thought a black man could be president only 46 years later. They never thought a country could change so much. That dream, like your dream, was beyond their comprehension.

This is why I enjoy my talks with my little voice.

And even though my dream is so very different from what was discussed on those steps in 1963, it is still a dream, a hope, it is about looking forward, change, about expecting more from people-kind. It is about not giving up and believing in what seems impossible and so very far away.

We cannot walk alone.

We cannot turn back. MLK 1963

Because we all have a dream.