Despite the punishingly high temperatures, we’ve been using this long Labor Day weekend to make progress on the house. The front porch and back porch are framed and just need the railings and a coat of paint, and they’re chipping away at the side porch steps.

We have the electrical installation scheduled for Tuesday. It’s quite an ordeal. We will be without power or air conditioning for a large portion of of the day, and the high is projected to be 114 degrees…so pray for us!

This week we won’t be able to make much more progress given the heat. But, when the porches and the electrical are taken care of, all that stands between us and moving in is the driveway inspection. The end is in sight.

My parents’ 29th anniversary was this weekend. To celebrate, we had a charcuterie board and steak dinner. I made a Manhattan cake (a cake inspired by the cocktail with whiskey, bitters, cherries, and oranges).

I’m so grateful for my parents and their marriage. Throughout my entire childhood, they modeled sacrificial love and showed us what a marriage should be: laughter, grace, tears, repair, hugs, kisses, inside jokes, and above all, unconditional love.

The celebration was small but beautiful. It was a light in the midst of a dark summer. We are all still weary: I’m slowly recovering from COVID, and we suspect Michael now has it too (but we aren’t going to try to stick a swab up his nose to check). He’s been unhappy and uncomfortable, which has led to very difficult nights this week.

It’s amazing how sleep (or lack thereof) can change our perceptions and moods. When I’m especially sleep-deprived, I often find myself thinking of the illustrated version of Pilgrim’s Progress I read as a child, with Christian falling into the Slough of Despond. With illness and exhaustion and a sick baby, it certainly feels as though I’m slogging through a swamp and despondency can become overwhelming.

But because of that, I’ve been thinking about hope, one of the cardinal virtues (faith, hope, and love). One of my favorite books on education is titled Tending the Garden of Virtue. I love that metaphor of virtue as a garden: all gardeners know the work that goes into gardening. For life to thrive, we must tend to it. We can’t just hope healthy and fruitful plants will spring up. We must water, weed, prune, and till.

Gardening is also an inherently hopeful activity. We hope the seeds sprout and the flowers blossom. We do our best labor to cultivate, and then we wait.

This season of our lives has been full of waiting, and full of death. But I have been trying to more mindfully tend my own garden of virtue — particularly my hope. I remind myself that seasons change, and while in this season there is much in the ground, and much in darkness, this darkness won’t endure.

In the midst of the grief and the waiting, hope is here. I see it in my son’s smile, and hear it my husband’s laugh. I water it in our garden every morning. And, by looking for it in all of these beautiful things, I cultivate it within myself.

The seed is in the ground.

Now may we rest in hope

While darkness does its work.

Wendell Berry