Hope, as I Know It

Hope isn't always grand.

It’s not a speech, or a sunrise, or a miracle waiting in the wings.

Hope is setting the alarm for tomorrow.

It’s laying out socks and shoes for a run that hasn’t happened yet.

It’s making dinner plans for next Sunday,

booking tickets for a movie that’s a week away,

or laughing over retirement investments like life is a guaranteed long haul.

Hope is ordinary - and that’s its power.

Because sometimes, life has a plan you didn’t see coming.

Like that August morning in 2000.

I left home at 8:00 AM, fit and fine.

By 9:00, paralysis struck – 

body folded in seconds,

my life rewritten in one careless fall.

Since then, I’ve learnt:

Hope isn’t denial of risk.

It’s a quiet nod to possibility,

a pact with the unknown that says

“I will still plan, still try, still believe in mornings.”

So, I lace up my shoes.

I pour the oats.

I set the alarm.

Because that - that - is hope!