Today I am grateful for hope.
It is hope that stills me, bars my descent into despair. It is the bedrock that steadies me against the storms of confusion and anxiety.
Hope is the pathway to love, the balm for pain.
It is the sister of trust,
the child of faith.
Hope is the promise of joy.
In the early days of the pandemic, it was easier to stay hopeful.  After all, surely it would soon be over.  But as the days, weeks, months drag by, as our problems compound, it’s easy to become discouraged. But as Emily Dickinson reminds me in her beautiful poem, “Hope Is The Thing With Featuers,†hope is an inside job.
On the footpath where I walk in the mornings, people have begun leaving messages of hope painted on colorful stones.  As I walk by, my spirits are lifted by these small thoughtful gestures.  And they remind me  of all the goodness and beauty in my life. Hope is always there. I just have to look for it
HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS
That perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the stormThat could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm.I’ve heard it in the chillest land,And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me.
The beautiful photo was provided by my good friend Carlton, a master photographer.
I wonder if anyone really truly believes this.  So easy to buy into the lie that life is like a racetrack, a seemingly endless series of laps
, a delusion
fueled by a culture that worships youth and marginalizes its elders.
I remember rolling my eyes when my mother and her friends launched into a  litany of aches, pains and  funeral reviews. I vowed I would never allow my world to shrink so small, become so focused on myself.  I would be involved with life – would have far more important things to think about.
But to my chagrin, I find myself actively participating in these conversations with my friends nowadays. It is, after all, what is happening to us. Â One more thing to add to my list of things I vowed I would never do.
What I hadn’t counted on about growing old is that nothing  stays the 
same for very long. Â Some days are full of hope and good fortune. Â I am brimming over with gratitude for my friends, my family, my reasonably
good health. Â Other days it takes all the strength I can summon to put one foot in front of the other, to stay the course.
If we haven’t learned life lessons along the way, if we don’t have friends 
and loved ones around us, if we don’t have creative outlets that give us joy, God help us. Â Because the older we get, the larger the challenges, the bigger the losses, the less we control.
Living a successful old age is hard work, in my opinion. Â I need all the resources I can muster. Â But no matter what my situation, Â I am in charge of the path I take. Â I always have choices.
And in the final analysis, it’s  not that the road ends, it’s where it ends that matters.
Lately I find myself thinking about death a lot. Â Not in a morbid sense, just reflecting on the reality of it. Â The necessity of death for the rebirth of spring. Â The triumph of spring over the desolation of 
winter.
I’m not afraid of death, exactly. I’m not eager for it, but it’s harder to “fit in” to the world around me now and I don’t want to outlive my expiration date. Â I’m just not finished yet, there is still more to do, more to be.
This surprises me.  By now I expected to  be wise, surefooted and  content to sit placidly with a cat or two, awash in memories of a life well lived.
Guess not. Â Maybe in a year or two.
Image by joangonzalez from Pixabay
“Nobody sees a flower – really
it is so small it takes time –
we haven’t time –
and to see takes time,
like to have a friend takes time.â€
Georgia O’Keefe
Not so long ago, time stretched ahead in an endless ribbon winding out of sight to unlimited possibility and opportunity. There would always be time. To do more, have more, be more. Or ..to change course.
But the paths were one-way, constantly bifurcating. With each decision well reasoned or impetuous, other paths and their tributaries were lost to view. Still, there was more time, surely. 
Then inevitably, imperceptibly, my path narrowed and led me here. Now the path ahead is straighter. There will be fewer opportunities, fewer choices. Each moment counts.
It’s time to take time. 
The unkindest cut. Â The one we never expect because only those we 
trust can betray us. Â Â It happens to all of us.
I hadn’t thought about her for years until I ran across an annoucement about an award she had recently received. Â I was surprised at how quickly the old painful memories replayed themselves in my mind. Â The initial shock and disbelief, Â stabs of disappointment, Â rushes of anger, and eventually, more in my interest than hers, forgiveness and acceptance.
She was my student, my star student at the time. Â The one for whom I had such high hopes. Â The one I rescued from the slums and nurtured. Supported, financially and emotionally. Â Provided a network. Â Advocated for. Â Â Defended.
It was wonderful to watch her grow and flourish.  She was like a kid in a candy store.  Everything was magic for her; the university, her classes and research, the malls, the internet,  even the night-time sky.  She glowed with happiness.  We were a team.
Until she found a brighter star and  moved on to follow it, leaving behind a trail of lies and broken promises.
Painful as it was, and uncomfortable as the memories still are, I am grateful for the experience.  It taught me  that my expectations for her were a heavy and unjust burden.  No one has the right to require  loyalty from another person.  In spite of and maybe because of,  my good intentions, I caused her harm.  And probably more importantly,  it brought me face to face with my own past betrayals and the lies I told myself to justify my cowardly behavior.
She must have carried a heavy burden of guilt.  It’s the only logical explanation I can think of to explain the  smear campaign she launched  among the faculty and students.  I never knew the specifics or the extent of it, but the averted glances and hushed whispers told me all I needed to know.
Make no mistake; the release that comes with  betrayal exacts a heavy price.  A plausible justification for  cowardly behavior must be fabricated and a web of lies concocted.  The  guilt of my betrayals will always follow me,  nipping at my heels,  threatening to expose my lies,  until I finally face them and the people I harmed.
Each of us has the right and the responsibility to be true to our own convictions, even though acting on them may take all the courage we can muster.  And if this means severing ties with another human being,  we harm ourselves most of all if we hack them apart in the  dark corridors of betrayal.
It’s been said that in order to know love, we must first know pain.  It follows that in order to trust, we must travel through  betrayal, be crushed by it,  burn in its crucible, and be released.
There will be another friend, lover, child, to love in the light of day, free from the dark spectre of betrayal.
