Hope

Hope:
Noun.
1) A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen

• a person or thing that may help or save someone
• grounds for believing something good may happen

2) (archaic) a feeling of trust

I have thought about hope all day today.  What is life without hope?  If we aren't hoping for good things for our future, why are we living each day?  If we aren't hoping for the best, what is life for?

Today I saw my friend's hopes destroyed.  She found out that her fourth IVF did not work, and she is not pregnant.  She doesn't know if she will ever be a mother.  All of a sudden I realized just how much hope I was holding on to for her, how much I had told myself this cycle would work, she would be pregnant.  And I know she was feeling the same way, but even more so.  This hope was beyond the desire for something to happen, and was truly an expectation that it would work.  How could it not?  She has been through so much, surely it was her turn for good news.

So what does she hope for now? I know she is hoping that somehow, some way, she will become a mother.  And I hope the same.

My job is to give others hope.  People come to see me when they are at the end of their rope, and they hope that I can help them change, help them gain a new perspective on their life, give them reason to keep moving forward.  They hope I can relieve their pain, teach them new things.

Sometimes our hopes get adjusted; we take what happens to us and alter our picture of the future to accommodate those changes.  But we always keep up hope.  Hope that one day we will get pregnant, we will stay pregnant, we will hold a baby in our arms.  Our depression will lift, our anxiety will calm, our lives will slow down.  Hope that if today is not good, tomorrow will be better.

So here's hoping for a better tomorrow.