Love Gives Us Hope

It was my first time stopping for lunch at this deli since Covid began. I had missed their ample salad and soup selections. I carried my bowl of soup to the well-spaced tables. I watched as a middle-aged couple and their adult daughter cleared and cleaned their lunch table. Then the daughter opened a bag containing white envelopes, along with a bundle of what appeared to be invitations.

She separated the stationery into neat piles. I watched the young woman tuck small cards into small white envelopes. She handed them to her mom who placed it with a larger invitation into the outside envelope. Dad took the finished product, attached address labels and then stamped them.




They were focused on the task, but they talked and laughed as they worked. I saw the young woman’s engagement ring sparkle as she worked. So many weddings were put on hold during Covid, I wondered if she had been waiting for two years for this special day. 


It looked like a stack of about fifty envelopes. I imagined friends and family gathering to celebrate a young couple beginning a new life together. 


They didn’t seem to be in a hurry, but rather, they seemed to enjoy this opportunity to be together and to be looking forward to an upcoming celebration. 


It gave me a reason to pause and be grateful in the midst of such bleak world news.  Weddings are still happening. In a future we can't see, love gives us hope.


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