Hope | The Yorkshire Dad of 4

Hope

It’s the hope that kills you – a quote often attributed to football which means which means that having no expectations or hopes may be better as your dreams may not be destroyed in a cruel manner. But another quote that is far more true is “To live without hope is to cease to live” (Fyodor Dostoevsky).

In these testing times that do look like going on well into 2021 we have to find hope. Hope that life will return to normal somehow. If we lose hope then we have not only lost the battle but we have lost the war.

My wife often says I am a negative person. I know where she is coming from with this. I can worry about things and focus too much on what can go wrong rather than what can go right. But that doesn’t means that I do not have hope and optimismn.

The global Covid-19 pandemic has taught so many people so many lessons. I’m not talking about how to use Zoom or become the educator for children of multiple ages. I am talking more of lessons in clinging to hope and finding the positives.

During 2020 I have not written many blog posts and I have avoided writing about the pandemic. Not because I don’t feel I have anything to write, but because I didn’t see any benefit in me writing about it.

I want to cling to hope that this will end. Somehow, writing about it would’ve given it more validity in my head and crushed my optimismn.

But I can write about it now. For we all have hope in the new vaccines become available.

The Pfizer vaccine, of course, has already started to be distributed here in the UK. I am immensely proud that we’re the first country to approve it and start using it and I won’t be drawn into the negativity that some people love to focus on.

There are other vaccines on the way too. The UK’s own Oxford vaccine is looking highly promising. And this should give us all hope that this nightmare that has become everyday life will be over sooner rather than later.

My family and I have stuck to the restrictions handed down in England to the letter. We’ve followed the guidelines and done what we must all do to try and help ourselves. I could harp on about the countless selfish people who aren’t doing the same, some I even know personally, but that would bread negativity.

But it’s so hard not to see the negatives as they are there, in your face constantly.

Delilah finished primary school without any of the usual fan fair such as the Y6 play/musical, the final summer fair or the leaver assembly (AKA the festival of tears). The dance school showcase was cancelled after so much hard work and rehearsal – they were so close to the event then along came lockdown. A proper summer holiday was taken away (though we bagged a few days in the new trailer tent just before back to school). They’ve had to endure the strangest school life since returning in September. Of course Lydia didn’t get to sit her GCSEs but the saving grace was the results he was given allowed to to progress to where she wanted to go. The negative stuff is always there, lingering.

But it WILL end…

I want to be positive. I want to have hope and optimism. I want to focus on the fact this will be over soon and we can all get back to normal. Not new normal, just normal.

Hope is a greater power than love.

Choose hope (and love).


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