David and I were sitting outside a cafe enjoying the autumn air. The scent of chocolate and hot cross buns filled the little corner we’d claimed for ourselves. With Rosh Hashanah around the corner, there was a certain weight in the season—fresh beginnings, reflection and hope.
I could see something was bothering him. He stirred his cup absentmindedly, his face clouded.
“Bob,” he began, “I’ll be honest. Ever since my mother passed away, I’ve been struggling. I feel like I’m just moving in circles: working, paying bills and trying to keep everything together. Inside, I feel stuck. Some days, I even feel hopeless. I wonder if anything will ever feel light again.” He sighed, voice quiet. “I keep telling myself it’ll be better. When you can’t see how, it’s hard to believe it.”
“David,” I said, “I get it. Grief has those seasons where it feels like the walls are closing in, where tomorrow looks the same as today and you start to wonder if you’ll ever break free of the heaviness but here’s the thing—hopelessness lies to us. It makes us forget what we’ve already survived and it convinces us the future will always look like the present.”
He looked at me, listening quietly.
“The truth is,” I continued, “you’ve gotten through every hard season so far. You’ve carried yourself through storms you thought would drown you and you’re still here. That means you’re stronger than you think. Hope isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about remembering that nothing stays the same forever. Even the darkest seasons shift.”
David exhaled, his shoulders easing a little. “I know you’re right,” he said softly. “It’s just hard to see the light sometimes.”
“That’s why,” I smiled, “we don’t look for the big light right away. We look for the small ones—the friend who checks in, the sweetness of chocolate on a cold evening, the fact that new beginnings, like Rosh Hashanah, remind us that we can always start again. Those little sparks are proof that hope is still alive.”
He smiled faintly, reaching for another bite. “You know, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thanks, Bob. It feels a little lighter already.”
“Anytime,” I said, smiling.
To you, dear reader—if you’ve been carrying heaviness lately, remember this: hopelessness is never the whole truth. Life shifts. Seasons change. You’ve survived before and you will again. Start small. Find the tiny lights in your days, and let them remind you that tomorrow can be different.
Hope isn’t far away—it’s already closer than you think.