Hope Vaughn stood amidst her family as the sun shined down upon them. She sat down on the ground and rested her hand on the gravestone nearby as she watched the beautiful sight in front of her. Her two daughters were talking with their Uncle Will. Her son was playing with his own children in the open grassy space, and she laughed as she heard Lauren yell for them to be careful. Her eyes scanned across the horizon until they fell upon her parents as they silently held hands in front of the grave of her grandparents. Jack and Irina had been gone for over twenty years, but it still hurt. They would have loved to see the way their family had grown over the years.
Smiling she looked down at the bouquet of flowers in her hand. "Well, we did it, Ty. We proved that stuffy Italian philosopher wrong for all those years, didn't we?" She set the flowers down to rest against the gravestone. "We had forty good years that no one ever thought we could have."
"Grandma Hope?"
Hope looked up to see the smile of her great-granddaughter Isabel staring back at her. She patted the ground next to her, and the little girl sat down. "What's the matter, honey?" Hope asked, reaching out to grasp Isabel's hand.
"Do you miss Grandpa Tyler?"
"As much as I did when he died a year ago, sweetheart. But I'm also grateful that I had so much time with him."
That seemed to satisfy the little girl as she bounced to her feet, presumably to go play with her uncles.
The sun lit up the inscription on the gravestone.
Love can conquer all as long as there is hope to share.