Eternal hope.  What is it?  Is it a vision, a beleif, a buffer against doors roughly slammed in our face and the words no echoing loudly in our ears?  Is it love for the wretched, sight for the blind, the first halting steps for someone who has been told they will never walk again?  Is it a delusion born in youth and carried through till life's last moment?  Is it a smile, a light kiss, the smell of her on the wind?  Is it the reason for joy in existence and the feeling we get when thoughts of love grace our lips?  Maybe it is, in part, just a tad, a bit like that...but I think hope is much, much more.  Hope is a dying man's last words to his beloved, uttered with his last breath before he passes over to the place where  we all will go.  Hope is, despite a completely ravaged world, the purpose of  existence for the leaders who want to get us through it.  It is Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Owens.  It is Steven Speilberg, George Lucas, and Peter Jackson.  It is the Para Olympics, the Special Olympics, and plain old trying to be the best.  It is youthful memories we share with no one for fear of ruining them, yet the fervor with which we hold on to them to help us through our day.  Hope is basic.  Hope is grand.  Hope is eternal.  It is the reason I awake in the morning  and the reason I can sleep at night.  It is eleven phone calls to a distant mother even though the last ten have not been answered because maybe this time it won't go to voicemail  It is Christmas(or Hanukkah); Toys, treats, and togetherness  It is the reason we celebrate the new year and the reason we easily forget he past.  Above all else, hope is existence.  Some days it seems like nothing will turn out right, that nothing will ever catch a break, that life is turning in on us and us in on ourselves.  We feel our hell approaching and there is no escape.   But despite it all, despite the pain, despite the worry, despite fear, despite the hate and doubt and dischord, despite the senseless loss and broken families, despite it all, you can give up your last dollar, your last smoke, and lose your last love but no matter what, despite high and low, hell and high water, despite the fires in California and the floods in the Mid West, despite the gunshots, and the hunger and the perversion and pain,  you can never ever ever ever ever a thousand million trilllion times ever you can never ever ever ever give up hope.  Hope is the thing we all share and we all deserve and if right now you are feeling out of it, like it is all gone, you can borrow it in me because I will never stop hoping.  So hope hope hope and have a good night and sleep well.  Love