Field of Dreams Illustrates . . .

Living in an imperfect world, we all witness to varying degrees our parents being unhappy. As children, we are helpless to do anything to rescue our parents from whatever we see upsetting them. Our parents’ happiness is so important to us, not only because we love them, but we depend on them for survival.

This past weekend, I saw one of my favorite films: Field of Dreams. The film can be seen to illustrate, among other things, the great lengths we may be driven to, unknowingly or unconsciously, even as adults, in order to see our parents, or their substitutes in the form of our current loved ones, happy. Ray, played by Kevin Costner, following the dictates of an unknown voice that hauntingly tells him, “If you build it, he will come,” sinks his life savings into plowing under a large part of his corn field, which as a farmer he depends on for his livelihood, in order to build a baseball field.

The climax of the story is when Ray gets to play catch with a younger, healthier and happier version of his father on that baseball field. Ray is given the gift of seeing his father with his whole life ahead of him before his father had allowed himself to become disillusioned and beaten down by life. It resonated with me as I imagined my father before the war had injured him. I teared up as I got in touch with the longing in me to see my father healthy and happy before the war.

At some point, we need to feel our sadness and accept we were helpless to help our parents. If not,as adults, we may self-defeatingly replace the corn field with a baseball field by doing with our loved ones what we could not do as children. We need to break the pattern of requiring our loved ones be happy so that we can be happy. We need to realize that we are responsible for our own happiness. This dependency leads to arguments and conflicts until we take the pressure off our loved ones to be happy. We can then really take time to listen to what is contributing to their unhappiness and help them feel better.


• Today, just imagine that, like Ray, you get to see your mother or father before you were born. Visualize them as younger than you are now, and see them in good health and full of hope, happiness and dreams about their future. Notice how it feels as you see your parents happy and hopeful.