He is the second-born son; healthy, kind, and given a name representing all adoration and love she feels for him by his sister five years his senior. His rustic blond hair never stays in place due to all his running about. His eyes, green like the pale inside of a lime, so full of adoration and wonder for his surroundings, and his lips thin and brave, uttering any word he dare thinks of. 

The photo radiates joy in a way, as his eyes smile so constantly it overwhelms you, because no matter where he is, he’s just happy to be wearing that too big of a baseball cap.

My brother dreams of being many things. In the air force, to fly jets and fight bad guys, a basketball player that will make lots of money, and a football player who will catch every ball the quarterback throws his way. But each time he is shut down for dreaming big. 

“That’s not realistic, what do you want to be besides that?”

I’ve even caught myself saying it. Why push him down, why can’t a little boy be allowed to dream big? Do people think he’s not skilled enough, not smart enough? Too reckless? Let him reach for the sun even if his hand burns in the process. Let him be a ten year old boy. A boy too naive to realise life takes many twists and turns and not to give his hopes up. 

But we are pushing him down ourselves, doing the job for life. Telling him that’s unrealistic. If it’s unrealistic then why are there people who play basketball, why are there national football teams? Where were they when they first dreamed of playing their favorite sport like the famous players before them?

It’s just our way of saying he can’t do it. 

Telling him not to fly too high or he will fall. 

Daedalus was a famous inventor and engineer who took on a job with his son Icarus to build a labyrinth for King Minos who ruled over Crete,  to trap the monster the Minotaur.

After the Labyrinth was built the King paid “tribute” to his fallen son, Androgenos by feeding humans to the Minotaur. Theseus the heroic King of Athens volunteered himself as “tribute” so that he could slay the minotaur and end all the human sacrifices. When Theseus arrived in Crete, King Minos’s daughter fell in love with him and wished to help him survive the labyrinth and the slaying of the Minotaur.

Upon hearing this Daedalus advised Minos’s daughter, Ariadne how the labyrinth works, in turn, she told Theseus. 

When King Minos heard that Daedalus had told them the secret of the labyrinth he became enraged and imprisoned Daedalus along with Icarus in the Labyrinth. 

To try to get out, Daedalus began working on wings made of feathers and wax, to try and fly to safety. Before he and Icarus escaped, he warned him not to fly too low so the wings wouldn’t get wet and not to fly too high or the heat from the sun would melt the wax that held the wings together.

But still, after hearing this, young Icarus became amazed by flying and did not listen to his father’s warning and flew too close to the sun, where the wax melted off, and he fell into the sea.