My Hope for Humanity roses are in full bloom. The bush stands eight feet tall, with foliage heavy with rich blood-red roses. It is a remarkable presence in our yard.

This rose has bloomed twice per year since it joined our garden. This year holds the record as the earliest that they’ve ever bloomed, early June, and I’m wondering if we’ll see three sets of blossoms this year. Every time this bush blooms, I think of what I have hoped for in the past, what I am hoping for, and what I might hope for in the future. For a plant, it sure inspires existential musing.

We have family members healing from injuries and illness, friends wrestling with the lagging economy and branching into new endeavours, and I’m thinking of them and the amount of hope they need to continue forward. On the home front, we have new house-mates adapting to change, Jason has a new part-time job, the first full-time year of school is ending for The Kid, and I’m working hard again at trying to find care to wrangle my post-concussion headaches.  It is a time of great hope in our home as change continues to sweep us all up in a whirlwind of the unknown.

Change brings excitement with tinges of hope, worry, and fear – but today, let’s focus on the beauty that is the hope.