One afternoon my grandmother and I lay in the soft summer grass sky gazing.

"I see hope in the maple," she said. "It’s thriving here in our garden. There is confidence in the glorious red standing proud in the midst of so much green." She opened her hands to the leaves. "There is courage in the cotyledon, that little circle of leaves germinating potential near the base of the trunk."

When her hands came back toward mine I touched my fingers to the circle of her wedding ring.

"I smell faith in the impeccably tuned wind chimes, in their perfect pitch. Look! The sound ribbons the branches the way poems award pages." She smiled at me and went on in that whimsical way that she sometimes does. "I hear optimism in the leaves dancing above us in the breeze. See? Some hold themselves open like palms ready to receive."

I let out a long sigh.

"Let’s touch the everyday heroics of bark!"

We kneel, and together we trace the growing map of fissures irregular and long on the surface.

"There!" She stops. Points. "They are interrupted, just like we are, wherever knots appear." She takes my hands and places them with hers against the biggest lump. "This one is heart shaped and anticipatory like our wishes for a summer with family: me, or with friends: you. For concerts in the park, in the grassy theatre filled with expectations near the river! For both of us! You on the stage. Me in the audience."

"I don’t know, Gran," I say. "Can we hope for those things?"

"Yes you can," she said. "Believe! I believe in people. In the full spectrum of us. They know what we need: compassionate congregation. Everyone united in the journey forward. All of us standing together. Safe."

"I want to believe that will happen too," I said.

She cradled my cheeks in the cup of her palms. I let myself fall into the lakes of her eyes, my heart protected once again.