Chris Gardner - Permission to Dream

To the makers of the Spiegel Catalog who accidentally gave me a how-to-dream workshop.

To the memory of my Uncle Henry Gardner who taught me to fish.

To the late Holly Norwick who gave me the gift of Atomic Time.

To my granddaughter Brooke for helping me dream again.

To my in-house editor, harshest critic, best friend, sweet pea, and Momma Goo Yolanda, for more than I can say.

To all the readers, listeners, story-lovers, book-buyers, soul-searchers, history-finders, and truth-seekers who pursue dreams with the power of belief. To the teachers, mentors, guides, and coaches who show us the way up the mountain. You are the essential workers of our time.

Though I refer to the American Dream numerous times on the pages ahead, Id especially like to dedicate this book to dreamers all over the worldbecause, as youve shown, dreams dont have borders!

In this work of narrative nonfiction I offer an account of an actual journey I shared with my nine-year-old granddaughtera memorable day in both of our lives. Although the highlights of that experience are faithfully recalled, I have taken a few liberties in rendering certain details used to describe people, places, and conversations that happened along the way. This approach allows me to honor the oral storytelling tradition handed to me by my elders. In that time-honored style, I get to pass the torch, offering parables and lessons that form my philosophical guide to happyness (misspelling intentional). My aim is also to re-create the actual dreamlike quality of that day, one that befits a subject as universal as the permission to dream. A few of the strangers depicted on our journey are composites of many of the fellow dreamers I meet every day. They are the working folks in every public-facing industry, and the students, audience members, peers, and others who reach out to me with questions every day and in almost every setting. While conversations recalled herein are not intended to be word-for-word reenactments, they have been thoughtfully recalled in the true spirit with which they were spoken.

S ometimesperhaps at what might seem to be the absolute lowest point in your lifeyoull be given a key to the most rewarding, powerful dream possible. Maybe its a dream youve never even considered before. That key may arrive in the form of a question you are asked by the one person you love too much to ignore.

Some years ago such a question was put to me by Holly Norwick, my lover, best friend, and patron saint for over two decades. We had not married, but there was never a doubt about our devotion to each other. She was mine and I was hers. When Holly and I started seeing each other in the late 1980sat a time when she was one of very few women working in the upper echelons of Wall Streetwe connected as kindred spirits. We were both dreamers in pursuit of becoming world-class in our professional lives.

Let me correct that. Holly was world-class in everything she did. Cooking was no exception. She loved to cook. And when I say world-class, Im talking the Rembrandt of risotto, the Michelangelo of meatballs. Aretha Franklin was the Queen of Soul, but Holly was the Queen of Soul Food! Our deal was she would make me anything to eat at any time of day as long as I did the dishes. Seemed like a good deal to me. Besides, I had help with those dishes, or at least with the pots. Cassius, our handsome boxer, who thought he was a child, did the pots. He had this process of sort of stabbing the pot that had been used to cook the meat sauceso he could then lick it clean. All I had to do was rinse!

One year as a Christmas present I managed to surprise Holly with her dream kitchen, which had taken me two years to complete. Working with a top design team, we completely rebuilt the old kitchen, first by raising the counters, which had been too low for her, and then by adding all the latest bells and whistles. Her world-class dream kitchen put Wolfgang Pucks to shame. To say that I went all-out would be an understatement.

When she first saw her kitchen, Holly cried so hard she couldnt speak.

Why are you crying? I had to ask, and she said it was because she was so happy she couldnt imagine ever feeling that happy again. That led in part to my misspelling of happynessthe y is there as a stand-in for you and your dreams and your definition of what makes you happy. Long after The Pursuit of Happyness came out as a book and a film, I continue to misspell it to honor the y in Holly.

No matter how hard we worked, Holly was my partner in fun, turning the smallest of occasions into memorable celebrations. Every now and then wed set aside time to get as far off the grid as possible. We were blessed beyond our dreams, in more ways than I could count.

Everything was cool.

Or so I thought. That is, before the day I woke up and smelled the coffeefiguratively speakingand had to confront alarming news.

Actually, when I woke up that day and heard Holly say, Good morning, in her usual upbeat, irresistible voice, I probably had too much on my mind to detect her worry. Everything felt important: changes at the company Id founded twenty years before; the reviving economy, full of challenges and opportunities; work on my second book; an increasingly busy travel schedule as speaker and business consultant; and, on a happy note, the fact that Chris Jr. had recently become a dad, making me the proudest of grandfathers.

That day, when I opened my eyes and heard her wish me a good morning, I was happy to still be under the covers. In that foggy state of debating whether it was time to get up and go to the gym or to grab a few more zs, I sort of rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked over at Holly, propped up on a pillow. I smiled. But waitwas that a worried look on her face? Then she said softly, Ive got to tell you something.

Fully awake, I sat up.

Whatever else she said I dont recall, only the words Im losing my vision.

My initial reaction was to immediately go into denial modewhere I basically spent the next three years. What do you mean youre losing your vision?

This made no sense. She looked perfectly healthy and fine, as she always did. Even just having awakened, Holly was stunningly beautiful, graceful, elegant, and obviously athleticthe picture of health by any definition. She was only fifty-one years old.

Holly looked at me and winced, clearly anxious.

My mind raced. Do you mean you need new glasses?

But it was the way she had said the words Im losing my vision and the look of fear in her eyes that had already let me know this was well beyond my small-minded question. I can see now that was my first stepa big old leap, in factinto a place called Total Denial.

As Holly began to explain herself, I cut her off with a sudden realization that marked the first exit off Denial Highway. Wait a minute. I reminded her of the trip shed just taken from Chicago to see her parents. You just drove to Arkansas and back. Why didnt you tell me this before? Not allowing her a chance to answer, I went on: If Id known this, I wouldnt have let you drive down there!

I know, Holly responded. Thats why I didnt tell you.

We had just gone Beyond the Wallnot a welcoming place at all. Everything that is uncertain lies Beyond the Wall.

Swinging into action, I made phone calls. My response was to take charge, get to the right specialists, and solve the issues. Any number of problems could have been the main cause for her apparent loss of vision. Having an eye issue myself, I first sought answers from my own doctor, one of the top ophthalmologists in the world, Dr. Theodore Krupin at Northwestern Universitys Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Having a fair amount of reach and access has its advantages. I used every connection available in the field of medicine. Holly and I went together to a series of visits with the best medical specialists in the world. I didnt know then, but figured out quickly, that one of my jobs was to declare, Weve got this! Were going to be fine! If youve ever been down this road with someone you love, one of the FIRST things you learn is how not to show that youre scared too.