She cried when she read the final phrase of the book: "…all human wisdom is summed up in two words: 'Wait and hope'." She wondered what she was waiting for, what she was hoping for. But the answer was obvious: her friends.
- Into the Night and Gone
When my children were young, my wife and I were quick to teach them that “people are more important than things”. It usually came up when a toy broke or went missing. We’d remind them that objects can always be replaced. People can’t. Relationships matter more.
Of course, we all have seasons in life wherein we find ourselves waiting for a new job, the next business opportunity, the next great idea. Other times we’re waiting for clarity, or relief from grief or pain.
And, yet perhaps the most difficult of times are when we find ourselves waiting for people, for reconciliation, or for the return of someone that once felt so constant.
In Into the Night and Gone, that type of hopeful waiting isn’t abstract and it isn’t grandiose. It’s personal, and quietly enduring. It’s the belief that, against the odds, sometimes the people who shape us might still find their way back to us – or us to them.
Sometimes what we’re most waiting for and hoping for, is each other.