Hope

Yesterday was a not-so-good day. My pain seemed greater than usual, even though nothing was different about my pain medications, and I had a small migraine that I couldn't do anything about because taking Excedrin would mess with all of my other medications. Later on, my mom stretched out my bad leg for me and that helped my discomfort and I took some more medications and around 9pm or so I finally felt a lot better.

I woke up this morning and I said to myself "You're going to have ups and downs, good days and bad ones, you just need to accept this, do the best you can, and move along." Then I was thinking about the word "Hope", and most of you won't know the significance of that word in my life, but read on and I will share it with you. I need to hope more, and believe more, that this did happen for a reason and that even though that reason isn't apparent to me now, it will be some day.

Ironically, this afternoon I received a Get Well card from my Aunt Sandy and Uncle Bob, and in that card my Aunt Sandy quoted the very source, the very reason as to why "Hope" is such an important word in my life....allow me to explain.

Many many years ago, a gentleman named Thomas Lanahan and a lady named Hope Kittelsen went on their first date to a local Chinese restaurant. The date was going very well, they were totally hitting it off, and eventually the time came for them to open and eat their fortune cookies. Hope opened hers, her fortune was nothing of consequence, and ate her cookie. But Tom, he cracked opened his cookie, read his fortune, and a huge grin formed on his face. He looked up at Hope and read to her the writing on that small piece of paper:

"He who has hope has everything."

To make a long story short, Tom and Hope were never apart after that, at least not in their hearts. Tom went off to fight in World War 2 and came back a decorated hero, and they were married, I think around 1944, and they were together for 60 years until Hope died of cancer in September 2004 and Tom followed her a few years later in December 2007.

Tom and Hope were my grandparents, in case you haven't figured that one out, and while I don't have a lot of memories of them, my most vivid memory is of my grandpa pulling out his wallet one summer when I was visiting them in New York, I was probably 9 or 10 years old, and showing me the fortune and telling me his story. He kept the Hope fortune in his wallet from their first date to the day he died in 2007. I now have that fortune, which he made into a little collage with two pictures of my grandmother, framed and in my bedroom.

Anyways---the whole point that I am trying to make here is that hope is essential, and I intend to stock up on it and to never run out.

B