Ostomy Memories of the Brass Ring

WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG, IT’S OKAY to be a dreamer.  Your whole life is ahead of you, there are so many choices, so many rewarding possibilities.  I can only suspect that I was once a dreamer since I have no specific memory of it.  I think that I became an absurdist at an early age.  I remember my best friend in elementary school once telling me that I laughed too much.  My response was that he was too serious about things.  Then he moved away.  I grew up, all the accidents that make up one’s life propelled me along my way, there was a brass ring just ahead, then I got sick and learned what an ostomy was.  During the ensuing years, I climbed back into the saddle, not thinking that the horse wouldn’t throw me again but that, if he did, I’d land on my feet and keep going, which I did.  By then, I was a hard-wired cynic, but still laughing at the absurdity of it all.  I had marveled at the talents of the Beatles.  “You may say I’m a dreamer,” sang John Lennon, “but I’m not the only one.  I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”   We all saw what his dreams got him.  Some asshole shot him dead on the street.  Even so, I look at my beautiful granddaughter now and wonder what she’s dreaming.  I shove my cynicism aside and root for her wholeheartedly.  I’m dreaming, as it were, that she grabs her brass ring.

What a beautiful post Henry.  Made me a little teary eyed.

Terry