I Hope...

This week for me was difficult and tiring at best. I’m sure that all parents can relate. My 5 year old contracted the norovirus and was out of school all week. The hard part is planning with my wife which one of us will stay with him. Since she is a 6th grade teacher, I totally understand the complexities of sub plans and the challenges that teachers have when they are out for a day.  Though I may not have sub plans, I have work that doesn’t get done when I’m not there. Understanding this, it becomes a shared experience for my wife and I alternating the first days out and then me, taking the third day in the hopes he will not need a fourth. Well, here we are on Friday and the score is 3-2 because he had to stay out again today. As I have mentioned before, I’m competitive so as for the score, I’m winning. I bring this up because the stress of sick children is real. We all want to take the sickness from our little ones. Let them be happy and playful. Let me deal with the ugliness of the virus. Been there, done that. I know, I know, I can hear Kelly Clarkson singing, “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger”. I get it. Ultimately all the germs our children pick up helps to train the immune system. But it truly is stressful. There is a ton of hope, which completely goes against one of my life rules, “Hope is not a strategy”.  When it comes to our children, it is sometimes all we have. Hope. When medicine only treats the symptoms and is not a cure, there is hope. When one day turns into three then into fourth with no end close, there is hope. When the symptoms are mimicking an acute appendicitis or pancreas issue, hope is all you got. The alternative is hopelessness and I refuse to ever go there. When I have done all I can do, sought out the experts, and followed the best advice available, I will employ my hope. I am a very lucky father. I have healthy children, though one is still slaying the norovirus dragon. They are healthy and my hope is that I have a lifetime of days to get stressed out about them and their health. I am lucky. I acknowledge that there are others that are not so lucky. There are some families that are hurting. They have an empty seat at the dinner table. I hurt for them and I have hope for them. Hope is a really strong tool. Hope is optimism. Though half the water in the glass is gone, the glass remains half full. In 1732, Alexander Pope coined the term, “Hope springs eternal”. I have always loved the idiom.   Most people will always hope for the best, even when faced with challenges. Pope nailed it. If you don’t understand it, then you may not be a baseball fan. There is a ton of hope in baseball. Maybe that is what it is. I am just a kid at heart, doing what I have always done. I hope for a fastball to hit and not some gnarly curveball that catches me looking. I’m not going down with a reverse K in the scorebook! If you don’t understand, ask a baseball fan.

Until next time...