“Hope is the thing with feathers . . .”

I have many super powers: finding silver linings, re-framing, focussing on the positive . . . But there are days when hope is more elusive. Days when Covid numbers are climbing and harsher measures must be enacted, days when the top stories are all bad news, days when I learn a dear friend who has been living with a sore back for months is, in fact, living with incurable bone cancer, days when Doug is grumpy or sad . . . days when I am grumpy or sad. 

There are books. (There are always books.) And there is chocolate or pasta or pink grapefruit or blue cheese or whatever my favourite food of that second happens to be. There is poetry. There is music. There is nature. There is walking.

And always, always there are friends, and my sister and my Mum, and Piper-the-Cat.  

And there are words, when I am able to find them. 

Doug was never a competitive Scrabble player; his vocabulary is (used to be) extensive and he delighted in playing the most interposing words, not those with the highest score.  

We played against each other, and then, as his words disappeared he and I played as a team, against my sister and her youngest daughter. At that time my niece could spell “cat” and “joy” - in one of those games Doug played “loyalty” and then “talisman.” My sister and I ignored our teammates’ occasional misspellings, and awarded points for effort and enjoyment.  I watched over the months as my niece’s spelling improved, and Doug’s worsened.

When he first moved into his care home, Mum and I played Scrabble, with Doug drawing tiles from the bag, sometimes managing to count the correct number, sometimes not. No one cared. And then Covid: so it’s been over a year since my Mum has visited her son-in-law, my sister her brother-in-law, my youngest niece her favourite Uncle. 

I still take our bag of tiles to his care home. Years of use have worn the wooden corners, and they are lovely and smooth. I spell out DOUG and LOVE and make sure he doesn’t put the tiles into his mouth. So there are always words - even when I struggle to find them. 

This week I am holding Melodie & Donna & Lorie especially close in my heart. 

Onwards, with love. 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

-Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.