Accidental Peace by Lee Wolfe Blum

Hope for parents

Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches in the soul

and sings the tune without the words 

And never stops at all.

Emily Dickenson knew something secret and beautiful. And she shared it with us in this poem about hope. But, you become afraid of that thing with feathers because it might mean you are disappointed again. That your loved one might relapse, might use symptoms, might go back in treatment. So we you lose hope. You grow weary and tired and complacent. 

It is easier to not get hurt when we can put a label and an expectation on someone. When we can define them as an anorexic or a bulimic. Sure, maybe they have been struggling with an eating disorder for 10 years, but why can't you still hope? If you don't, the parents, then who will?

To dream...

*"To dream the impossible dream To fight the unbeatable foe To bear with unbearable sorrow To run where the brave dare not go..."   I received an email that stopped my heart.  I was chatting with my friends as we finished our warm soup. I noticed through the tall window of the restaurant the cool spring day blowing the icy Minnesota winter away. I reached into my purse to check the time on my phone. An unread email caught my eye. An email that stopped my heart. An email telling me that yes, my book, my story will be published. That finally a contract was being sent to me. In a pink diary with a gold lock and tiny key, I wrote my first journal entry. "I hate Bobby. He smells.” I was five. There were thousands, some notebook papers with frayed edges, some fancy leather books with pretty ties, but often they were simple spirals with lines. It was the words that fell on those lines that mattered. The words that were an expression of my heart and of my soul. An outpouring of the person banging up against a world that offered little breaks and much pain and sorrow. Joy was there too, but mostly the scribbles of me in an unreadable outpouring of words trying to figure life out. My words. Was God telling me to write? Was God urging me on? I don't know...but I know I needed to write. Late at night when the lights were out, under my covers with a flashlight camping, on a bathroom floor, on a plane. Wherever. I needed it like humans need air.