Fireleaf Blue Modern Organic Mobile | Mark Leary Designs

Mobile: Blue Fireleaf

On the beautiful audacity of hope

“F*&@!” yelled little blue bird. 

“What’s wrong?!” asked red fox. 

“Oops,” replied bird, embarrassed. 

“I was trying to tell people to ‘HOPE!’ but I had something stuck in my beak.

Thoughts while making
Rain or shine, she laughs. Every morning. Every afternoon. And, I’d imagine, many times in between. Despite having been confined to a wheelchair for just about her entire life. Despite not being able to speak. Despite having been told more than two decades ago she wouldn’t make it another year.

I hear her laugh when she’s loading up into the bus on dark winter mornings. I hear her laugh when arrives home on the hot July afternoons. Despite countless surgeries. Despite a culture that has trouble with persons living with disabilities. Despite not having so many of “things” that so many of us take for granted.

Today, as I was packing up this mobile – one that reminds me of the sky, of birds taking flight, of unlimited possibilities and a million different futures – her bus pulled up to drop her off. And there it was: that tell-tale joyous laugh.

I can’t know what she’s really feeling. But the family who has cared for her since she was given up as a baby talk about her happiness, about the fire within her, about how loved she is. And this gives me hope: that in that blue sky where birds fly, we really do have such possibility available to us no matter where our bus drops us off each day.

What’s your favorite four-letter word and why?