Memories and Martin Luther King

I came across the transcript of Martin Luther King's speech 'I have a dream ...' when I was sorting through some papers at home... 

 I recall the events which led up to Mr H printing it out for me...

Dawn do you know what day it is
um.. it's..  I think it's still Wednesday

Do you know where you are
Ward one high dependency unit

Can you tell me who the President of the United States is
Aha (my swollen head smiles) trick question, President Bush; Barack Obama is the President Elect 

I hear the nurse smile...

I will answer the same questions and many more thousands of times before my release...

Barack Obama had been elected a couple of weeks before and when I was well enough to go back onto the ward it was the main topic of conversation with my bedside neighbours. The first black American President. Amazing. Momentous  We talked about Martin Luther King's speech and racked our brains to recall anything other than I had a dream... So Mr H was tasked to go home and print us a copy...

The speech lifted my spirits for in a different way I was trapped; by my body, unable to move freely. Unable to go where I desired. Unable to make free choices...

"But let us not wallow in the valley of despair...I have a dream...let freedom ring...free at last!"

As I recall this  I reflect on my own dreams:
I dream...that one day I will climb to the top of Old Man Coniston and feel the freedom of wind in my hair as I look down on the world.  

I have a dream that my legs will cast aside their chains to dance a waltz.

I have a dream that my epilepsy shall sleep, tucked in by effective drugs, so that I can legally travel with 'my Dorothy'.

But these dreams make me feel small and selfish; they are insignificant in comparison to the 1963 demonstration for freedom from segregation, poverty and racial injustice. A speech made when I was one day old!

But I too have big dreams... 

I have a dream... that one day the lives of people living with disabilities (visible and invisible) shall be free from discrimination

I have a dream... that I shall live to witness the cure for brain tumours...



Technorati Website Tags
Martin-Luther-King, Disability, Discrimination