Hope is never lost- just misplaced

Hope - what does hope mean? a belief in things to come? A wish for a dream? When you say "I hope" it sounds as if something may happen but then again may not... so you "hope" for it, and perhaps it will come true.

I have had a realistic dosage of  hope for a long time. I hope for a sunny day, and I hope for peace and I hope for joy for my son Andrew.

Today I thought a lot about Joy - what is life without Joy - it's flat and bland - like a BLT without the bacon! It's that zing that makes you get up in the morning, the joy of meeting someone new or doing something you have never done and looking happily toward the day's events.

I went to a workshop and met a man who stressed the word JOY - that without it our lives as humans are pale and insufficient. I think I spend, like most of us, many days without Joy - without the sheer thrill of living.
We let the humdrum stress and demands of every day life suction out the joy and replace it with angst and distrust.

Joy is seeing Andrew in the  yard sitting in his chair his face to the sun, and the wind making him smile. In that moment he is joyous with himself and within  himself, and I am happy for him.

There are those days, sent to us by Mother Nature, that inspire, and conspire to make us breath deeply and take it all in. It may be a winter chill and an icy frost that takes you by surprise or the first little tickle of a breeze from spring. I often find the most special times to be with mother nature are the times when the earth is just waking up. I was out in my yard this a.m. around 6 a.m. and it was gloriously noisy.

I had never realized that birds literally sing their little feathered heads off early in the morning. They know the meaning of Joy and they don't try hard to capture it. They sing with their whole heart. The  spring peeper frogs join in in a noisy, discordant chorous.

Take time to keep hope alive in your heart and although I do lose my hope some days   hoping for a better life for Andrew, I find that it is not really lost just dormant, sleeping and still hiding underneath the stresses that each day often brings. .

Cate