the people around me - a father's offering

recently, i decided to tap into the incredible wealth of thoughts, insights and experiences 

of the people around me. i wrote to a buncha these different people asking for their insights

on different subjects to share on my blog.with everyone's busy schedule, they land on mydesk when they land on my desk and i'm just trusting the timing! posting them as i get them,
aiming to post on wednesdays!

the timing for this post is perfect. it's from a friend of mine who is a dad. with father's day
coming up, i could not think of a better time to post this. i had asked him to contribute

to the blog some time ago. it was in the middle of a chaotic time for him, and i told him that

whenever he could, the timing would be right. jeesh. i couldn't have known how right. sharing
in a little bit of his story that inspired this writing has been a great honor for me. he reminds
me of what good dads are made of...and again just how important trust and faith truly are. it
is with gratitude and respect that i offer you the following -

Hope and Faith It's kind of funny that most people would probably associate Hope and Faith with religion, but I'm not a religious person; and this text really isn't about an Omnipotent Being, I'll leave those sorts of discussions for another time

But the last couple of years, actually in truth probably most of my life through one thing or another I’ve had to face some adversities; in the grand scheme of things, they're pretty inconsequential - I haven't been critically ill, or lost the use of my body, or starved, or had my house flooded or blown away by a hurricane; and to most people who are unfortunate enough to have suffered those circumstances I appreciate that, my life and my woes are fairly pale by comparison.

And I’m not writing this text as a 'woe is me', or 'haven't I suffered' or 'please feel sorry for me', no that's not the intent; I write this as a fairly happy person, yeah I've been through some stuff, but as mentioned above, in the grand scheme of things it's nothing great. There is no great insight here, this is just stuff I have floating around in my head, that I feel suits me better written down.

So how does a non-religious person like me have Hope and Faith? Well to me, these are words; words that do not have to have a religious connotation that can stand up on their own. In the simplest of terms Hope is much akin to a wish, and Faith having a belief that something will happen.

It’s really hard to explain this in any detail without giving some examples of my recent life, my recent hopes and where I’ve placed faith; but it’s also very difficult to detail a few of these things at the moment; to the people involved these are still raw times, there is still a lot of hurt being felt, and it’s certainly not my place to put that sort of detail out into the world.

So all I would say is that some very recent events that have been unfolding over the past year, have driven a wedge between people I care deeply about; unseen suffering both emotional and physical for people I care about; and being helpless to do anything despite best endeavors – during all of this, I had Hope that the right path would be found, I had Hope that they would follow the path, I had Faith that this would happen, I had Faith that the suffering would stop .. no matter how desperate my Hope and Faith seemed, no matter how much that wedge had got bigger, I believed that nothing was insurmountable, that nothing couldn’t be undone, that the light would be seen, and that the wedge would be eradicated.

I write this here today, as testament that you should never give up, never walk away – and keep on believing! I write this here today, to say the wedge has been demolished, that the suffering both emotionally and physically has ended, that the Hope I had of following the right path was justified, and the Faith that the strength could be found to follow that path was also justified.

I write this here today, as a very proud Father, whilst I still have a sense of feeling I could have done more; I’m also mindful of the question ‘How much help is enough?’ – and that reassures me that, it doesn’t matter how much more I would have helped, I would still be feeling I could have done more.

I’m not sure that any of this writing has a moral, or a punchline or any advice; it is what it is, a concerned Father relieved, and pleased that he retained Hope and Faith.

- Brian