Hope
“It’s just you and me on our island of hope.” --Sarah McLachlan, “I Love You.”
Mama always said that I should never hope for too much. Hope, she said, made things go away. Pray to the Good Lord and maybe he’ll answer. But don’t spend all your time sighing and staring at the sky, hoping for rain during a drought. If the Lord sees it fit to happen, it will happen. And I don’t want to hear nothing more about it. That’s what she always said.
But I don’t see no sense in that and neither does Mister Robert. He always pats me on the head when I walk by on my way to the store and smiles down at me.”
“How you doin’ today, Sissy?” he always says.
I giggle becasue that’s not my name.
“Just fine, Mister Robert,” I always say back because that’s what Mama always says. “How ‘bout yourself?”
“I’m hoping for the best.”
He always said that and I never could figure out why because Mister Robert was never down on his luck. Not one bit. I suppose that’s why lots of unlucky folks like my mama never did like him. But I liked him just fine. He was a nice man. Or leastways I always thought so.
I hoped a lot because I thought that if Mister Robert hoped and got so much, Mama was probably wrong. Or leastways she wasn’t all the way right. I wouldn’t dare ever tell Mama she was wrong. She’d probably slap me into next Tuesday!
I never did understand why Mama was always so severe about so many things. It seems troublesome to be always worrying about things like not bothering to hope. But I wouldn’t ever tell her so.
Besides, I know she don’t take her own advice on that anyway. When the garden gets yellow after a dry spell during the summer, I see her look toward the sky and I know she’s hoping for the rain. She prays, too but Mister Robert once said, “What’s a prayer without hope?” I agree. But I wouldn’t ever tell Mama so.
Mister Robert doesn’t like Mama, I don’t think. He told me she needed to smile more, but I told him on accident that she needs hope. He was surprised, especially when I asked him if she could have some of his. He laughed and smiled real bright and told me she’d have to find her own supply. I was disappointed, but I didn’t say so.
And anyway Mister Robert’s dead now. They buried him just this morning. It was Polly that found him beat up in the alley. She said he got into a fight. I can’t imagine Mister Robert getting into a fight, but I guess it must be true if Polly says so.
Mama won’t let me to go his funeral even though I begged as hard I I could. So I been praying instead. Praying that some of Mister Robert’s hope will come to my Mama now that he’s not using it anymore. I don’t know it will happen, but I sure hope it does.
"Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope." -- Thomas Carlyle
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