This is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

It is not my nature to bloom within a greenhouse;I am a wildflower, a weed perhaps. I need wide open and untamed places to sprout. I need to ask the questions and think the thoughts that others overlook.-Dawna Markova

Have you ever noticed that fruits and flowers grown in the wild are different from those cultivated under controlled conditions? As a result of their harsh upbringing, they’re sometimes as not as plump and pretty as their lowland kin, but their colors are so much more vibrant, and their taste so much more intense.

Although my time in the crate was horrible beyond comprehension, it was also an integral part of my formation; for better or worse, do you think that I would be the dog I am today if not for the sum total of my life’s experiences? Not necessarily in spite of but because of my adversity, I’m now like one of those mountain blackberries, forced to adapt to harsh reality; black and shiny, a little wild and prickly and not always fit for polite society… Dad says I’m like a high tensile steel spring wrapped up in rippling black velvet; I’ll take that as a compliment…

Dad had initially thought to have me trained as a companion dog, to visit hospitals, nursing homes, etc; like THAT’S going to happen! There are dogs suited for this, and that is their mission in life, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s not mine, but that doesn’t make them or I wrong; we just happen to have different gifts, ministries if you will, and the sooner we recognize the worth of our own gift, the more effective we will become.

(Deep breath; don’t you just love run-on sentences?)

So here is your mission: what is YOUR mission, your dream? No, not the one involving Kit Harrington and the desert island, but the one that really makes your pulse quicken? (As if that one doesn’t; dad just doesn’t understand). My page is all about inclusion, we all matter, and that includes our dreams; we may think that time has passed us by and our dreams are unobtainable, but that is probably untrue and certainly unimportant. What is important is that one you put yourself out there, you are encouraged to act, and also encourage others to act, as your particular dream may not have even occured to someone else.

It had never occured to dad to take off solo on a cross country trip when at 50 tears old he heard the story of Trevor Ware, who had done so much more at 24 only to be struck down by a drunk driver a short time later. Don’t wait;the clock that you hear ticking is your own heart, the incessant pull you feel is your own manifest destiny.

This is your page, so tell us YOUR dream, no matter how small and insignificant or vast and unobtainable you may think it to be, and I may tell you mine; I have one, you know, and it’s a doozy.

You show me yours and I’ll show you mine; deal?