Chapter 13
I'm Elias.
The first boy.
The miracle baby.
I was born after everything.
After the pain.
After the fear.
After the fighting.
I was born into love.
Into peace.
Into a family that had survived everything.
I grew up hearing stories.
About Mommy Elena.
About the bad lady Chloe.
About how Daddy and Mommy Marisol fell in love.
About how our family was built.
I never knew the pain firsthand.
But I felt the love.
Every single day.
I had two sisters who adored me.
Two parents who loved me.
A little sister who followed me everywhere.
And a grandmother in heaven who watched over me.
I was named after Mommy Elena.
Elias.
It means "the Lord is my God."
But to my family, it means "hope."
I was the hope after the storm.
The new beginning.
The proof that love can overcome anything.
I grew up happy.
Loved.
Protected.
I never had to be scared.
Not like my sisters had been.
Daddy and Mommy Marisol made sure of that.
They made sure we always felt safe.
Always felt loved.
Always knew we could come to them with anything.
I became a doctor.
I wanted to help people.
To heal them.
To take away their pain.
Just like my family had healed.
Just like they'd taken away the pain.
I work in emergency medicine.
I see people on the worst days of their lives.
And I try to help them.
To be kind.
To be compassionate.
To give them hope.
Because I know what it's like to have hope.
To be hope.
I got married to a wonderful woman named Sarah.
She's a nurse.
She works with me.
We met in the ER.
We fell in love saving lives.
We have three children.
Two boys and a girl.
We named our daughter Elena.
Of course.
I tell my children the stories.
About our family.
About the pain.
About the love.
About the hope.
I want them to know where they come from.
What their family has survived.
And how lucky they are.
We go to the vineyard every summer.
All of us.
The whole family.
Aunts.
Uncles.
Cousins.
Grandparents.
It's our favorite time of year.
We run in the vines.
We swim in the pool.
We eat good food.
We tell stories.
We laugh.
We love.
And every night, we look up at the stars.
And we know.
Mommy Elena is there.
Watching.
Smiling.
Loving.
I'm thirty years old now.
My life is good.
My family is healthy.
My children are happy.
And I'm grateful.
Every single day.
Grateful for the family that fought for me.
Even before I was born.
Grateful for the love that survived everything.
Grateful for the hope that I represent.
If you're going through hard times.
If you think things will never get better.
Look for the hope.
It's there.
Sometimes it's small.
Sometimes it's hard to see.
But it's there.
And if you hold on.
If you fight.
If you love.
That hope will grow.
And it will become something beautiful.
Something that changes everything.
May you like
I am that hope.
And so can you be.
