rewinding the week, part 2

another real-life Africa picture taken by my Mom...

This African safari skidded from a gentle might be to a hearty maybe... and then it was booked. Somewhere between maybe and that elated We're going to Africa phone call, I stared to really feel the excitement and the tears often rested on the edge of a dream coming true.
It wasn't really my dream... not from the start. My own dreams have never stretched beyond the borders of my own country, except maybe to skip over to Hawaii or up to Alaska. I have been so content to live through the pages of my Mom's scrapbooks and hear her stories. And I have been comfortable seeing the world on my TV screen... and occasionally being able to shout Mom & Bob did that! when teams were racing through Australia or Europe. I have loved every minute of my parent's travels... their memories, the trinkets that adorn their house and ours, and especially that they have had the opportunity at all. In fact, that is where those tears slipped out over the edge and fell onto my heart. In one excited phone call, talking about passports, my Mom told me that she has to renew hers... and in the next wonder-filled breath said I never even thought I'd ever have a passport at all... and now I am renewing it!
To think about it makes me tear up all over again. How much I love this woman... and want the world for her. She teaches me to dream beyond my little corner of the world... and when I'm uncertain, she shares her dream with me, and little by little it is becoming mine...