To: Love and Time
From: Your child, Hope
Date: Today – and everyday

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while. I know that anytime a parent goes any length of time without seeing or hearing their child, there is a tendency to think the worst.

I want you to know that I’m alive and well. A little bruised and battered sometimes – a little tired – but still kicking.

How could I not be? How could anything born of the strength of Love and the immutability of Time ever not make it through?

I’m not gonna lie – it gets a little rough here in Baghdad-Haiti-Orlando-Iowa-Everywhere sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I have a big red bullseye painted on my back – like there’s some grand conspiracy out there to kill Hope.

Ha ha. I know. It’s not all about me.

I don’t know if you’ve caught the news but there are people all over the world – normal people with lives and families of their own – rushing to Haiti to help the people who can’t help themselves. Firefighters, surgeons, students. Kids are sending shoes to other kids they’ve never met.

At Tut.com there’s a guy who sends out a “Note from the Universe” every day to hundreds of thousands of people just to tell them that they’re loved. Not alone. That they matter. And people are forwarding them to other people every day because they care, and maybe they don’t have any other words to express how much.

On the Internet (it’s that big white box in my old room, Dad) there are people raising money and praying daily for a wonderful woman and her family who have done so much to encourage others.

So, no, Mom and Dad, your beloved child Hope is not dead.

I will never die as long as there are babies being born and friends holding each 0ther up – people falling in love and baking each other cakes.

As Saint Theresa said, it’s not always possible to do Great Things, but it is always possible to do small things with great love.

I live in people, folks. And there’s far more hope-full people than otherwise.

So don’t worry. Dad, you’re not getting any younger. And Mom, I’m sending along a list of people I wish you’d drop in on, “toot sweet”.

I Love you (Get it? Cute using Mom’s name that way, right?),

Forever,

Hope

(I found this on someone’s blog I read and it made smile…and reminded me that no matter what..there is always HOPE)