Dreaming of Home

This is an article I happened to read today and it's just one of the many I've been reading or hearing about lately. It just reminds me of how lucky most of us are, and how little we appreciate life. I'm also attaching a link with details on what's really happening but please be aware that some of the pictures are quite disturbing.

http://www.pierretristam.com/

"I went to sleep today, for the first time in days perhaps. In dreams, I thought, life could be better. For someone who has a lot of nightmares, my dreamland proved to be indeed better than reality. I was back with my family in our old Beirut home, sitting at the dinner table, my brothers eating in a hurry and then dashing off to play, and I remain with my parents, keeping them company and listening to their gossip. The food is magnificent and my parents' company, which I took for granted until the day I moved out of their house, is warm and comforting.
I woke up to hear that the White House declared the destruction of my homeland part of a Global War on Terror. Siniora is warning the diplomatic community that the collapse of his government, which they say they want to preserve, is unavoidable if the destruction continues. Michel Aoun, who with others in the country gave Hizbullah the legitimacy they did not deserve, now denies he's in contacts with them and acts like they're a liability he doesn't need. Aoun warned of a civil war should Israel continue to destroy army facilities, which he claimed were used to monitor arms smuggling by sea to extremist groups.
I immediately called my father in Lebanon. They're safe but the morale is low. There is no end in sight for their predicament, and my father is angry at those "Arabs" who left us again to die for them. I tell him about my fears about Lebanon becoming another Iraq, now that its destruction has become part of the infamous Global War on Terror. He tells me that people are indeed afraid this could lead into a civil war in the country. The Israeli attack would stop, but only when civil war starts brewing and eventually ignites, taking the pressure off of Israel. When the Israeli lords of war say they want to turn the clock back in Lebanon 20 years, then perhaps we should think in terms of a return to civil war. My father saw the evacuation of foreigners as a bad omen.
I told my dad, whose whole life was focused on protecting me and my brothers during the war, to stay safe. He said they weren't budging from their new house in the mountains, not that they could, even if they wanted to. After all, they're refugees in their own land.
I hang up and my wife calls me. I am on the verge of tears. In just a few weeks, Kais will come into this world. We were hoping he would be born in better times. I am praying that Kais sees his grandparents and uncles as soon as he's old enough to interpret images. He will, this I keep promising myself. Until he meets them, I will tell him to look for them in his dreams. I will tell him how every night in the bomb shelter, my father told us the story of a little boy who one day asked his father: "Baba, what should I do when I grow up?" The father goes through a list of professions and recommends a few lucrative ones. Those were my father's dream professions. And he ends his story: "You do whatever you want, my son, as long as you're happy and safe."
Kais will feel safe like I felt safe when my dad told us this story to the sounds of bombs. When my son is old enough, he will see how I picked one of my father's dream jobs, and then left it to pursue what made me happy. And that turned out to be not a job, but a wonderful woman from another country, and a wonderful baby boy.
Kais, you will meet them, if not soon, in your dreams. For they are, regardless of what happens, part of the dream my father created in me. These kinds of dreams live on forever, and are passed from father to son."