Always out here, looking for . . .

Sometimes I find it, too. Close by, even. Like  . . . right at the end of my driveway and just across the road.

Late last week, I went out to put some trash in the bin when I noticed my neighbor, with his three young children in tow, carrying a small table to the curb. The oldest of the three kiddos (Frankie, age 7) ran across the street to explain to me – with great enthusiasm – that they were making a lemonade stand! Fresh squeezed, he told me. Fifty cents a glass. And, as an aside, he let me know there would be MORE than just lemonade!

Serious enthusiasm. Big enthusiasm. (Frankie exudes enthusiasm. Always.)

I assured Frankie that we’d be taking JoJo for a walk soon, and we’d stop over to buy some lemonade then (because, as Frankie pointed out, it was a hot day and he knew we’d be very, very thirsty).

And we did stop by. We were the kids’ first customers. Lots of excitement. Homemade sign on a piece of cardboard. A bit of a tussle over who would pour and who would take our money. Explanations about how they’d helped their mom make the lemonade. Some pets for JoJo. A bit of a chat with their dad (a very good guy) who was supervising. And, in the end, a quite generous pour of some really fine lemonade. (We ended up buying refills after our walk.)

Remember that Frankie had told me they’d have lemonade for sale . . . and MORE? Well. They also had a wagonload of rocks for sale. (Y’know. Rocks they’d dug up in their backyard.) That is MORE than lemonade, indeed. But we passed on the rocks.

As I went back in the house after our walk, I realized I’d just found some hope there at Frankie’s lemonade stand. Enthusiastic hope . . . selling fresh-squeezed lemonade to the neighbors. (And rocks, too!) Big smiles, big hearts . . . so pleased to be Doing Something Real and Serious.

And that, my friends, is HOPE.

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
— Stephen King