hopeth all things

“Hope is the hardest love we carry.” Jane Hirshfield

What role does hope play in charity/love? It isn’t that we hope the one we love will love us back, for you can’t make someone love you. It isn’t a hope that the ones we love will change and become what we want/need them to be; that is an exercise in disappointment. But hope is a motivating factor; it’s what keeps us from giving up on each other when progress is so slow as to be imperceptible, or circumstances aren’t what we would choose. It is hope that keeps a mother from abandoning a wayward child, not a hope that the child will change, but a hope that her child will feel the mother’s love. It is hope that keeps alive a husbands love for his wife, even as he watches her succumb to Alzheimer’s. It is too late for a miracle, but he can hope her remaining time will be gentle on her, and then do his best to make it so. Hope is a very selfless quality, a subtle way of believing in someone, a way of making our love unconditional. Hope is the hardest love we carry because we cannot ever relinquish the load. If we set aside our hope, we will surely drown in the murky depths of hopelessness called despair.