20 days/485 hours/29,100 seconds

There is a reason why the first thing we often ask someone after we learn their name is where they come from. Where's home? It is because the notion of "home" is imperative to human life.

Throughout time, writers and scholars alike have all attempted to define this essential concept. In the second poem of the Four Quartets, T.S Eliot writes that "home is where one starts from". Personally, I favour the definition scribed in the book "Honey for a Child's Heart". In this work, Gladys Hunt raised the question "what is home?" Her response to this was "[home] is a safe place, a place where one experiences secure relationships and affirmation. It's a place where people share and understand each other".

So how does Hope Home fit into that concept? Hope Home is a safe place. The children that reside there are secure, nurtured and more than anything - loved. It is a home in the truest sense of the word, just like your own personal home.

With that in mind, I would like you to envision something. Imagine you are a boy. Imagine you are ten years of age. Imagine waking up in the morning, lazily extending your limbs to and fro to shake out the drowsiness. Then imagine being gently told that in approximately two weeks you would be moving to a strange city ten hours away. Then imagine being gently told that you would be making this journey all by yourself with only your few belongings in tow. Now you can stamp this described visualization as dramatic, absurd or even unbelievable - but your stamp would be false. For it is believable, I can attest to that.

Unfortunately, this agonizing story played out at Hope Hope in the past couple of weeks to an amazing boy. A boy who has experienced such hardship in his body that has been ravaged by severe cerebral palsy. A boy that despite his illness mounted against him showed extreme determination and tenacity in countless scenarios. A boy that still managed to physically move himself around and hold himself tall - all with limited assistance. A boy who transformed himself into a beacon of light and a fountain of positive energy. A boy that though physically confined in a wheelchair the majority of the time, did not allow his spirit to be contained.

Well amazing boy, if words could drift off this page and travel on a magical paper airplane through the sky - I would send the following to you. I wish that your inner strength only grows in the face of the adversity you are facing. I wish that your happiness does not dim following this storm of turmoil. I wish that your smile breaks through the oppressive mask that has been molded by your arduous departure. I wish that you find a small amount of comfort in knowing you are thought about every single day. Lastly, I wish that in this short time that has passed you have already impacted someone in your new home. For in just 20 days/485 hours/29,100 minutes - you impacted me so tremendously.