Hope on Four Legs

For the last weeks of her life, Mom lived with my sister and her husband. When Hospice was called, they brought a bed and set it up in the living room. And next to the bed was placed the set of stairs that Hope could ascend so as to lie next to my mother.

Mom’s other constant companion in those final weeks was her four-year-old great-grandson, Elijah. It was not lost on me that Mom’s dearest companions in her final days were a boy whose name means “The Lord is God” and a dog named Hope.