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It got me thinking back to my childhood, my dreams, and how my parents fostered that "dream for the stars" mentality in me.
If I were to hone in on one point for this blog however, it would be this - Parents, you should be the biggest cheerleader ever in the dreams department.
It's funny, when I was young (confession time), I wanted to be a lung specialist. I mean, it makes sense right? I was around hospitals all of the time. I could handle all of the jargon that was thrown around. Blood and guts have never bothered me. I was always talking with pulmonologists. And of course, I was for sure going to cure CF one day :)
Now, my dream occupations changed from time to time, but I would generally always land back on being a doctor. In my younger years, I was very vocal about this dream.
It's important to point out that this was also a time in which they were figuring out that we CFers really shouldn't be around each other. It was also a time in which very few CFers attended college, and of those that did, very few graduated. CFers who actually were doctors? Well that was obviously few and far between.
I didn't care though. I was going to be different. I was going to buck the trend and be the first CF specialist with CF that exclusively worked with CF patients. Knowing the time and the situation, you would have thought that my mom would have been "the bearer of bad news" or in the very least realistic with me. Nope, she wasn't. She was my cheerleader, just as it should be.
Growing up, my mom never uttered the words "Ronnie you can't" when it came to my dreams for a future. Talk of college, career, marriage and babies were had on the regular in my house. It was never if those things were going to happen, but when.
Did my mom actually think that I was going to be able to fulfill all of my dreams? Who knows. Better yet, who cares?!?! The important thing is that she raised me to be a believer. A believer in hard work, commitment and personal responsibility. She raised me to chase my dreams in-spite of CF. She raised me to chase me dreams because of CF. My mom convinced me at a very young age that my formula for making my dreams come true was the same formula that my friends used. Surprise! CF had nothing to do with it.
So, did I become a doctor? Not even close. But do I appreciate my mom for knowing that I could have been one if I would have chosen to pursue that path? Absolutely.
You see, our children are no more worse for the wear if you encourage them to chase their dreams and they still fall short or choose another direction. It's more important to us that you believed in our dream as much as we did. We don't need everything to fall into place exactly as planned to be "living the dream".
We do however need a dream, and we need a dream cheerleader. Are you up for the job?
Then grab some pom-poms and let's get to work!!
