One More Thought On Loss

Today as I was putting things into storage and rushing around with preparations for the impending move, I was reminded of a quote that sums up what I think that I may have been somewhat trying to convey in the last post. It comes from the play Angels In America, and was spoken by the character Harper.

"Nothing's lost forever. In this world there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think so" -- Tony Kushner

And it's true; it was this painful progress that I was attempting to speak to in my last post. However, when I remembered the quote, I remembered the last line as "I hope so", which made it so much more poignant to me. Yes of course we hope so, but honestly, I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is that I hope to be so. For the time being, I suppose that Hope will be my blanket; Hope will be what carries me (though indeed, it carries all of us) through however much longer I may feel that I need to be carried. Hope is redemptive, and is a close cousin of Faith, though perhaps a more wistful and less certain cousin. Faith is Certainty, while Hope is the middle ground between Certainty and Dreams. Hope is what, along with Faith, keeps us going from day to day.

Regardless of what you may fear that you've lost, or are losing, you can only hope that you will reconcile this with what you may gain, whatever that is. It is not yet even 5pm, and Seattle is nearly completely dark, bundled in it's own blanket of mist, so much so that I can barely see the Space Needle from my window; just an illuminated outline with the not yet completed Christmas lights atop the spire. In light of all of the transition and change in my life, I am refreshingly less cynical than any time in recent memory. Bundled in Hope, I'm ready to move forward into the future, whatever it may be.