Hope.

In the last 9 months, the idea of “Hope” is constantly on the forefront of my mind…the idea, and even the word itself appears in my daily life, all the time! When I get still, I think about it deeply.

I was reading my book the other day (White Oleander), and it talked about the notion of hope…I’m not sure if you can see it clearly, but I circled it for you so you can zoom in. The passage ends with, “Despair was the killer. I had to prepare, hold hope between my palms like the flame of the last match in a long Arctic night.”

I read it over and over again, as I sat outside, eating my sandwich, while people passed. I always giggle to myself about the irony of it all – that while I am having these profound moments in my life, heart, and mind, the world continues around me.

The same thing occurred to me, as my father was dying, because as I was sitting in the quiet of my parents’ bedroom…praying the Divine Mercy chaplet, and crying at my father’s bedside, and pleading with God for a miracle, and feeling Heaven calling him so intensely in that small space, and losing one of the greatest loves of my life – My Dad – with the hospice nurse and my family beside me…the world continued.

The landscapers mowed lawns, while I sat in that bedroom…

…the bedroom that my father walked out of when he finished getting ready for work in the morning, smelling of aftershave.

The dog walkers walked their dogs, while I sat in that bedroom…

…the bedroom that my father charged from in the middle of the night, like a super hero, when I’d cry out because I’d had a nightmare about witches or vampires.

The families strolling their babies, while I sat in that bedroom…

…the bedroom that was the heart and foundation of the love my parents had together and the home that they built for us.

Watching my father struggle to breathe.

Watching my once vibrant father slip away, one breath at a time.

The world continued…as we sat in that bedroom.

It still continues.

We are no longer in that bedroom.

We still hurt.

And what do we have left in moments like these, but Hope?

Hope…that God will heal hearts and walk through the fire with us.

Hope that one day…we will be the ones on the outside, laughing and delighting in the small moments, again.

I feel it everywhere, and it is the only thing in this world that keeps me going in the hardest moments.

I took this photo the week of my father’s death, in one of his weakest moments, and I even questioned why I was doing it at the time. I’ve been waiting for the right time to share it, and I want to describe the significance of it. It is so powerful!

Here’s the story behind it…

My father wanted to get up from his chair, and he could no longer walk. He was too weak. As my mother hoisted him up into her arms, she explained what she was doing. She held him up, and swayed with him back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, until she could turn him enough to sit down in his wheelchair.

“We dance together,” she said, and my mind flashed back to the memory of my parents dancing in the living room together, when I was a little girl. I smiled and delighted in the thought of it. My parents didn’t always see eye to eye as time passed. There was a tension between them, and we could feel it in our family.

Even though my father was sick, this was a cherished moment in time. They were embracing one another, and I could tell my father was so grateful for my mother in this moment. We knew he was not going to live much longer, and I just wanted to remember them loving one another fiercely, after he was gone. So, without thinking, I took out my phone and snapped the photo.

This was the last time they would dance together. He was laid in his bed shortly after, and he did not get up from it again.

Two weeks after his funeral, I was visiting with a friend, and I showed her the picture. We zoomed-in on it, and admired the beauty of it together.

With a smile on her face and tears in her eyes, she said, “It’s funny how God works, isn’t it? You were praying for a miracle and for healing, and look what God gave to your family…he did not spare your father’s life, but He absolutely gave you and your family a miracle and healing…just not in the way you asked for it.” Then, she pointed at the picture.

It was only then that I noticed, in the zoomed-in photo, the picture hanging on the wall behind them, and Jesus’s outstretched arm over my parents, as they danced together in the living room.

This is a picture of healing.

Of love.

Of miracles.

Of hope.

This week, a friend asked me how I keep such a positive attitude when things seem so dark, and I said, “Hope is a powerful thing, and if we believe that God is as big as we say He is, then we also believe that anything is possible.”

Hope is a blessed ointment, which gives strength to the wounded and the living.

Hope keeps us believing that joy can come after pain.

Hope helps us breathe, when we believe that we can’t go on.

I need it, badly. You need it. We all do.

Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all…”

I hear that sweet song and its urging!

Can you hear it?!?

Listen.

It is a beautiful reminder that Hope lives.