I Hope – Part 2

I hope:

• That Hope is able to reconcile all of her different “Black folk” experiences that cut across race and culture into one cohesive racial identity with which she is comfortable.
• That her distrust of institutional systems lessens.
• That she continues to feel comfortable telling me things.
• That I get the hang of this teenage parenting thing.
• That Hope is able to really develop a mission and vision for her life.
• That I’m able to live up to my mission and execute my vision for my life.
• That she stops going through a bottle of shower gel every week.
• That she remains excited about her natural hair and becomes excited about her cocoa brown skin.
• That she knows that I don’t care who she comes to love as long as they treat her right—you know like 57 years from now.
• That Amazon begins selling legitimate chastity belts (I kinda kid, but really don’t Google this…seriously, don’t do it…smh).
• That I can continue to have frank honest conversations with her about sex, domestic and child abuse and other topics that I thought would make my head explode but didn’t.
• That I can get the donated bike spiffed up so Hope can go for the bike ride she’s been begging me about for months.
• That more brown faces end up on the posters on the walls—just a bit of diversity please and thank you.
• That our church embraces my desire to dedicate her at 13—charting new territory here.
• That Hope’s ongoing theological questions and interest in church activities seals her accompanying interest in baptism.
• That we manage to keep Jay and Bey Crabber (yeah, the crabs are named after the Carters…) alive for a significant amount of time—so far so good.
• That Hope continues to reach milestones missed during some chaotic years.