Everyone Has a Dream

People fleeing from all over the world and begging entrance into other countries due to fear, starvation, persecution and worse has made immigration more prominent now than I can ever remember. Take away all of the political chatter and you realize that immigration is simply (people) who leave their own home and country of birth to go live permanently in a foreign country. Their reasons for doing so are probably as long as their list of names? Whether to pursue a dream and/or to find better opportunities for themselves and their families, human migration has been going on since the dawn of time.

Alongside my own personal research, I've been having some intriguing conversations with my Dad the past few years regarding a certain immigrant we knew who has long ago passed and was so very loved by many. Due to circumstances beyond his control, and in hopes of having a better life, this man immigrated to a foreign country all by himself, when he was just sixteen years old. He had been apprenticed to a cabinetmaker at age ten and didn't speak a lick of English when he set off on the epic adventure that would take him to a place he would, for the rest of his life, know as home.

Respectful and kind, this intense individual always had a friendly smile on his face and spoke his words with passion and fire all at the same time! He grew incredibly delicious tomatoes (and tons of other vegetables), created furniture that filled their home and always had a stash of his own homemade wine and vinegar in the basement cellar. His wife, of almost 65 years, loved to sing and sew. She was an immigrant as well.

Without a doubt, immigration is a prominent subject that deserves attention. I'd humbly like to shine the spotlight on the journey of one very special man. A man I simply knew as Nono; a man they called Ned. He stood proud and persevered! That's a consequence of living life.

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