HOPE Floats and Floats

For twenty-four years when I lived in Milwaukee I loved sitting on my second story deck in the spring and summer having tea with the birds, squirrels and gentle breezes. I was at eye level with a thick forest of trees twice as high as my two-story house.

During the icy, cold, snowy, dreary winters, the trees looked like a maze of brown, barren, leafless sticks. Instead of thick green leaves, all I could see from the deck were roofs in the subdivision behind me. During those winter days I’d look at photos taken during the warm months. I’d hope for warmer days, for leaves to appear, for the lush green to return.

I've hoped for many things over the years. When I sprained my ankle I hoped for pain free days. When my mother died at age 57 I hoped for a time when my every thought wasn't consumed with her untimely death. When my 2nd husband married his girlfriend the very day our divorce was final, I hoped I'd survive the humilation. When he died two years later, I hoped for courage and strength to raise our son alone and my three teens from my first marriage. When I decided to sell my lovely six-bedroom house in Wisconsin and get rid of two-thirds of everything I owned and move to a small condo in Florida, I hoped I had the ability and strength to say goodby to wonderful old friends and start a new life a thousand miles away. When my only sister's only son was killed in a plane crash at age 18, I hoped she and her husband had the stamina and strength to suffer through the grief and gently move forward with their lives.

Hope is what gets us through. One of the books I've written is titled "THE FIVE THINGS WE NEED TO BE HAPPY And Money Isn't One of Them." One of those five things is HOPE. Something to hope for. Hope may be my favorite of the five things because it covers so much territory, expands our horizons, gives us courage to go on and helps take us out of the past and into the future.

Hope is better than a day on a deck in the summertime.