America Dream

...everybody has a dream to leave a better life and leave a sound legacy and i am one of those who doesn't sleep nor rest until the job is well done so it was not surprising when Ken came to me with the news about the Merchant chip to Mexico.He told me that once we get to Mexico,we will make it to the land of great opportunity...AMERICA.

I have a dream to travel to America some day in my life and live the American dream so i adhered to his instruction not to ever let any one know about our secret plans not even my parents besides my Mother would never have allowed me to embark on such a journey nor my Father who was simply a Farmer.In my village in Africa,we were told that the streets of American were plastered with gold and at just fifteen i knew so much about America.

We were scheduled to leave the shores of Africa on the 24th of August

I left home that early morning after kissing my Mother goodbye though she inquired to know why the deep kiss and high breath but i only told her that it was from a Son to a Mother and she told me to take care of myself,her words sounded like bomb in my heart and i felt for once that she knew that i was about to leave her.

We were smuggled into the ship and hidden in the basement then sailed for One month and at last here we are in the shores of Mexico

It was a dream come through as we made it into America, the land of opportunities,the air i breath in America was different from anything that has or is oxygen,it was fresher than the palm wine.I will soon begin to live the America dream but one thing that worried me was the amount of beggars i saw in the street and Harlem was not different from any neighborhood in my own country and at this time, i began to wonder if actually i was in America.

Now eight months without seeing not even a golden chain in the street,it thus dawned on me that everything we were told about America were fictions and lies.In America said Mike,the good Samaritan who sheltered us; "You have to work to eat".

The one bedroom shared with Mike and four others is nothing to write about but imagine a match box which could fit six people but it was better anyway because after all there were so many people out there in the street,people who had no homes and i would have been one of them without Mike.

I got a steady Job as a shoe shiner and now have been one year in this unknown land.

Life was not what i thought so i made up my mind to go back to my worried family,i knew that my Mother would have cried out all her tears and My Father's heart broken,i knew that i made a terrible mistake but Ken objected to my decision besides there was not even an easy way back home to my people.

"God's own country"

I believe in God so i made fasting and prayer my companion since there was no way back.

Now seven years in an unknown land, a land of survival with so many Titans, i survived all the obstacles that came my way by taking life just one day at a time then like manna from above or perhaps an answer to my prayers, I got a  job as a bar tender, it was not a professional job but at least, it is better than shining shoes, the wage was rewarding and the tips that I made helped me put so much in order. I contacted my immediate family for the fist time after seven years, my mother cried throughout the telephone conversation but my Father was man enough simply because he understood that I was alright and not dead.

Working in the bar was rewarding and I made couple of new friends among whom was the very person who changed my life. Her name Maureen.

I was a big fan of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and would rather say that I got my inspiration from their songs especially Michael, I have dreams to be a musicians and to be not just like them but bigger than them so my love for music made me enroll into the music school but I quit after six months of what I would simply put as Not good enough. What on earth should I do with my life? I took up an auxiliary nursing course as Maureen advised.

 Now a practicing nurse (Auxiliary per say) and living legally in America, there was yet something missing in my life but I needed no prophet to prophesy to me that my best friend, most confident and an Angel missing from Heaven Maureen was the missing part of my life so I took no second thought about proposing to her.

With a son of the way, I came to understand that my Maureen was truly my missing ribs and the birth of my son changed my entire perspective about life, I mean one can be anything, was once a farm boy, lowest class citizen but the course of my life changed simply because I never ceased to push. I pushed from my Father’s little hut to the street of Harlem perhaps that was one reason why I found no other fitting name for my son than VICTOR. I am a victor and not a victim and all I can tell you right now is to keep pushing because we are all victorious.

In America, nothing is impossible and my heart overwhelms each time I come across Martin Luther King’s poster with the inscription “I HAVE A DREAM”. Of course, I have a dream and I dream for a bright future for my family, I dream to be a famous and powerful man, I dream to be a good husband and a father, I dream of a world where black and white would interact without fear of atomic bombs, I dream of religious tolerance among the human race, I have a dream to be a Millionaire.

This story would be incomplete if I do not tell you about my wife Maureen, she is the foundation of my life, the rock of our family and above all things my best friend. She had been of great support since the very first day we met; honestly, without her, there would be no me, she was my mother, my sister, my everything and I have never for once objected to anything she say, we do everything together and the fact that we worked at the same hospital helped us to keep track of each other though sometimes people does crack a joke about us because she was a qualified nurse while I was simply an auxiliary.

We were driving home on a fateful Saturday morning after a busy  Friday night shift and the announcement in the Radio cut our attention, the winner of what the announcer called the biggest jackpot in the history of America had not claimed the prize, the winning numbers were repeated over and over and it has been two weeks since the Jackpot was won. Perhaps, the fact that I was not a regular or a lotto addict made me forget about checking my ticket however I knew that I left it inside the car so when we got home and I was about to get off the car, I remembered about the announcement and thus began scrambling all inside of the car for my ticket.

I later found the ticket inside the pigeon hole and at once remembered what the announcer said…

…“The biggest in the history of America”

“Two weeks and the winner has not showed up”

The numbers over the radio kept ringing in my brain, the same numbers were printed in the receipt in my hand or perhaps I was dreaming however I whipped my eyes  twice, trice just to make sure that I was not dreaming, I knew that I needed to wake up because my heart began to beat faster than normal, I laughed, jumped screamed and did a marvelous moon walk, guess I kicked my car tire over and over as I carefully placed the receipt on the car seat, bowed, salute, bent and kissed it then did a sigh of the cross, my entire body was shaking as I kept shaking my head in disbelief because the ticket resting on my car seat  was worth

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS.

My happiest moments were moments shared with my family though I was devoted to my work yet I always made out time for my family. I left work as usual after a busy day then stopped by the grocery store to pick up some candy and bread, was about to drive out of the parking lot when my wife’s call came in, she wanted me to buy pampers for our newest arrivals. Yes! We were blessed once more but this time with twin boys. I went back into the store and bought five packs but something struck my instincts to play the lotto which I did.

This story would be incomplete if I do not tell you about my wife Maureen, she is the foundation of my life, the rock of our family and above all things my best friend. She had been of great support since the very first day we met; honestly, without her, there would be no me, she was my mother, my sister, my everything and I have never for once objected to anything she say, we do everything together and the fact that we worked at the same hospital helped us to keep track of each other though sometimes people does crack a joke about us because she was a qualified nurse while I was simply an auxiliary.

We were driving home on a fateful Saturday morning after a busy Friday night shift and the announcement in the Radio cut our attention, the winner of what the announcer called the biggest jackpot in the history of America had not claimed the prize, the winning numbers were repeated over and over and it has been two weeks since the Jackpot was won. Perhaps, the fact that I was not a regular or a lotto addict made me forget about checking my ticket however I knew that I left it inside the car so when we got home and I was about to get off the car, I remembered about the announcement and thus began scrambling all inside of the car for my ticket.

I later found the ticket inside the pigeon hole and at once remembered what the announcer said…

…“The biggest in the history of America”

“Two weeks and the winner has not showed up”

The numbers over the radio kept ringing in my brain, the same numbers were printed in the receipt in my hand or perhaps I was dreaming however I whipped my eyes twice, trice just to make sure that I was not dreaming, I knew that I needed to wake up because my heart began to beat faster than normal, I laughed, jumped screamed and did a marvelous moon walk, guess I kicked my car tire over and over as I carefully placed the receipt on the car seat, bowed, salute, bent and kissed it then did a sigh of the cross, my entire body was shaking as I kept shaking my head in disbelief because the ticket resting on my car seat was worth ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS.

My wife was already inside the house so she did not know what happened and after almost forty five minutes of partial madness, I composed myself and walked into the house, I could not look at her face but I managed to hug the kids before flying onto the bed, My brain was about to explode and my wife’s kept asking what was wrong with me but I found no words to answer her,I lost my apatite and was filled with emotions but Maureen’s persistence to know what was wrong with me increased my blood pressure so I asked her to stop bothering and bombing me with questions. I knew that she was worried because of the changes in me,it was all over her but honestly, i was so emotional that I could not put words together.

The night passed so slow and I realized that it was dawn just when she woke me up to get set for work, it was already 11am and I needed to be at work by 12pm but I called the hospital and notified them that I won’t be at work. As at this time, the two days of silence and changes in me were enough to break my wife’s heart, she was as confused as I was but the fact was that she knew that I was not normal, if she had not known me in and out,guess she would have considered the changes in me drug related but she was not wrong considering it a spiritual attack.

The proof that I was attacked spiritually as she thought came to light when she came back from work the third day and saw me in the sitting room with the kids dressed up and a bottle of champagne on the table, she did not know what to say and without hesitance, I summoned her to sit down but she objected because she had just returned from work, it was like a little fight but I won and she sat down.

There was an envelope on the table aswell so I asked her to open it and go through our divorce papers, I saw the surprise in her face, the shock and disbelief was all over her, I knew that what was going inside her mind was that I was probably in sane, she tried to look into my eyes but I turned my face away then she broke down in tears, stretched out her hands to hold me and with a soft voice she asked me what she did to deserve what I have done then I responded that what I was doing was for love then ordered her to open the envelope which she however succumbed courage and did to find the surprise of her life.

There was a car key and couple of papers inside the envelope and none related to divorce documents then she looked at me to make sure that I was not actually in sane but I stretched my hand and held her then asked her to close her eyes and follow me outside, she wanted to hesitate at first but made up her mind to do as I say, I walked her outside and opened the car park then she opened her eyes to see her dream car Boggati with pink balloons all over it and a cardboard on the windscreen which read;

“FOR MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE MAUREEN.”

We both held each other and I kissed her, then knelt down and begged her to forgive me if I did hurt her feelings with the way I have been acting then made it clear to her that there was no other way I felt more pleasant to express the shock and surprise in me than the way she saw, I mean she could not believe all I said but the proof was the papers in the envelope. A beach house in Florida. Her dream house.

Nothing good they say come easy , yes it is true but take it from me right now that good things come easy in life but they have time, Miracle comes in different forms and riches come not by how many hours we put at work or how many sleepless nights we had, believe me, one can be blessed overnight after all, I am a living example and that is why I decided to share this story to let you know that everything is possible once we dream and believe in our dream. I am living my American dream and don’t ask me what I did with all the money because only a fool forgets his history.

We still work as nurses but in our own private hospital and my Father still go to his farm but his farm products sells outside the shores of Africa, a leading exporter of palm products.