We once had a three year old foster child who, while I held him during long periods of traumatic emotional outbursts resulting, we supposed, from the losses we knew he had suffered, would tell me repeatedly he was going to stab me in my face with a knife. Among other things. After long bouts of that I needed a hug as much as he did.

Yesterday a seventeen year old foster boy asked me how I was, and said “I love you”.

It happens that these two characters are the same person.

We can never predict outcomes, or fill in the dots between then and now. But it’s not a bad idea To Hope, to plan, and to work for the best kind of endings.

And not to give up.