By Jennie Griffin
***This post is dedicated to B. Fox, whose words resonated deeply within me and inspired me to write this post, and Paul Lovell, who quite unknowingly gave me the courage to tell part of my own story.***
My father was one of six children who grew up dirt poor in the 1920s and 30s in the mountains of Virginia. His family experienced one tragedy after another very early on in his life… the death of a younger sister, the death of his father, living with an abusive step-father, being displaced from their 1,000-acre farm so the government could create a national park, and even being forced to leave school to take a job to help support his family. The odds were stacked against him from the beginning. He became an electrician’s apprentice at 12 years old and was then drafted into World War II in his late teens. After serving, he left the military ready to fight anyone and anything in his path.
Somewhere along the way, he decided he wanted more in life than what he had been given. This led him down a road of entrepreneurship. He started an electrical business with his brother, which led to a land development company, a custom home building business, and a concrete company. He bred Appaloosa horses on the side and had a farm in Northern Virginia. And he did all of it at the same time with seemingly boundless amounts of energy. He was on the job site early in the morning only to come home in the evening to care for his horses. He’d often come into the house exhausted and ready to eat dinner as everyone else was winding down for the night, and he did this day after day. He had arrived. He was living his American dream.
I couldn’t help but admire my father for his determination and accomplishments; however, I realized early on that his definition of living the dream was not my own, and this proved to be a thorn in both of our sides up until the day he died in 2018. Our relationship first splintered when I chose to go to college out-of-state. It further fractured when I got married at 21 years old and continued to live in another state to attend graduate school. And seven years later, when my first marriage ended in divorce, he railed at me once again because I refused to move “home.” In my father’s world, family never moved away from family, but I knew there was a great big world out there, and I wanted to experience it even if I had to do it by myself. It’s how I ended up in Texas, but that’s another story.
My father and I spent most of my young adult and adult life at odds with each other. As similar as we were in physical features and personality, we never saw eye-to-eye, especially when it came to my dreams. And yet I still pursued them because they were mine. I wish I could say it changed somewhere along the way, but the truth is we battled one another up until the very end of his life. And as he took his final breath, I felt numb. So much pain had been exchanged between us. So many words spoken in anger. So much resentment. I remember just staring at him, wondering how it had ended up like this. Why had my pursuit of happiness fanned the fires of his anger?
The relationship with my father has often caused me to think about the concept of what we call the American dream here in the United States. People throw this phrase around frequently as if we are all supposed to know what it means. The truth is this thing we call the American dream is highly subjective and constantly evolving based on internal desires and external pressures. And maybe this isn’t just an American dream. Perhaps it is more accurate to refer to this as a human dream because, at its core, it transcends the borders of a country.
And tonight, I can’t help but think about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’ve mostly thought of dreams in a positive context until this point, but now I see their negative aspect as we watch a dictator pursue his dreams of domination. How has this tragedy altered the dreams of the Ukrainian people either temporarily or forever? I imagine their dreams have now been replaced with thoughts of basic survival…shelter, food, water, the safety of family and friends. My heart hurts for their pain and loss, and I feel helpless and angry watching these events unfold. Tonight, my thoughts and love are with the people of Ukraine.
And now that I’ve poured a little bit of my soul out for you, allow me to introduce the March featured author, B. Fox, whose debut novel, Paper Castles, profoundly impacted my heart. If you have already read Paper Castles, then you likely understand how Fox’s story inspired this post. If you haven’t read it yet, then I hope you pick up a copy. It just may cause you examine your own life through a new lens.
