i dreamt of turn of the century immigrants

i dreamt there was a family,
mother and father
two daughters
about 4 years apart
i was seeing this from the eyes of a young teacher who came to the house to help the girls
the family was not rich
but they were not scrambling poor either
it was unclear where the source of support came from as neither parent appeared to work
it was a patriarchal family, and a fundamentally religious family although the religion was not clear.....the father was disappointed however that he had daughters instead of sons
the mother submitted to the rules of their religion and her husband

and the husband/father ruled with a strict and heavy hand according to his beliefs

from the young teachers point of view, the father was abusive
although she did not witness anything other then the father ordering his family verbally.

the demeanor of the family members and the fear in their eyes said much more
the apartment they lived in was lined with shelf after shelf of books
and the daughters sat at the center table under the light of an oil lamp studying from these books

the crutch of the dream came when the young teacher in a quest to stop some of the abuse within the family......

instead of attempting to remove or 'reeducate' the father ( which really was not done at that time)

proposed a rather unique solution......

she asked the father if she could try to jump the girls ahead a grade.....to challenge them

she informed the father that the girls were very smart girls ( which they were but not geniuses)
and
'let's challenge them just a bit, approximately half a grade'

from my vantage point in the dream i could see the father
he was so thrilled, and so proud and started to relax a bit
it did work in my dream

he had been driven to DRIVE his family out of fear that his girls weren't going to be perceived as 'good enough'
that their future life in this new country would not be as secure as he hoped
he was afraid that the community would as a whole look down upon them all
judging him and then his family inferior
that they would suffer and possible starve because of it

part of what i took away was the progressiveness of the thinking of this young teacher
in a society that did NOT have rules conducive to stopping abuse within the families.... she found a way around this

a way that everyone was a winner

and as i sit here and type this
i am starting to understand the father
which i could not do during the dream.......during the dream i kept thinking
'what a jerk......he needs to be gone gone gone'

i can see the thrill and relief in the eyes of the mother when the young teacher proposed this
i can FEEL the mood of the room lighten as they saw the young woman to the door as she was leaving

i can see the father......feel his fears start to drop away, being replaced by hope as he turned back to the center of the room and table with the girls, their books and the circle of warm light cast by the oil lamp

now i know that who ever this family is or was.............
or whatever reason this dream came

there is always another way

sometimes it is the opposite of what we think however


til next time

vi