No, it’s not sissy. Hope, that is. They believe it’s girlie. Grit, they reckon, is manly. Hope pleads. Grit demands. Hope hopes to get, even as grit gets.... So, is hope superfluous? Ordinary? Not really, no. Hope stands misread. And not so much for its gender alignment but for its core: soft, unobtrusive, intangible.

Hope is not the weapon of the failed, the doomed and the gloomy. Hope isn’t leftovers — what remains when all is lost. It isn’t the consolation prize; an also ran. Hope isn’t parsley you sprinkle atop that Stroganoff. Or even rosemary you plant on your Shepherd’s Pie. Hope is the pie — carrots and all, the chunks of wine-doused meat that is Stroganoff. Not window dressing, the garnish and in that expendable.