Hope is seeing your boyfriend after a long day of work.

Hope is seeing your friend in a foreign country posting on Instagram.

Hope is reaching out to an old friend who is in quarantine.

Hope is traffic slowly getting worse.

Hope is a family biking down the road with their children.

Hope is a bright ‘We’re Open’ sign in front of a small business trying to survive.

Hope is a new book showing up on your doorstep.

Hope is a couple having a picnic in an empty park on a warm, sunny day.

Hope is a family dinner.

Hope is watching the arts flourish as people of all ages tap into their creativity.

Hope is seeing a city empty not only of cars, but of smog and pollution.

Hope is a vaccine.

Hope is knowing that pandemic after pandemic, plague after plague, the human race has strengthened. Not a single virus that has threatened us has destroyed us. Instead, we fight, we live, we love, we give birth, and we continue to survive no matter what.

Hope is humanity.