The Genesis of Hope

My name is Hope Foster-Wilson.
I've spent much of my life learning what my name means.
My mother gave me the name Hope before she ever knew the woman I would become.
I am the eleventh of fourteen children. My mother often told the story of my birth. I was born with a brain tumor, and the doctors were concerned about whether I would survive. I was taken from her immediately after I was born. My head was shaved, and medical procedures were performed in an attempt to shrink the tumor. My mother was told that I might not survive or that I might live with significant disability.
But my mother said the Holy Spirit spoke to her:
“Name her Hope.”
So she did.
I grew up listening to my mother tell that story. Because of delays in my speech and a speech impediment, I spent a great deal of time sitting at my mother's feet and listening to her.
I didn't know then that I was learning something.
I was learning how to listen.
There have been many seasons in my life when I have had to learn what it means to live with pain.
Grief.
Heartbreak.
Loss.
Questions.
Guilt.
Things I didn't understand.
Things I couldn't change.
Things I had to finally release.
There were times when I had to unpack hurt, confront old wounds, process the past, and look at my life from a different perspective.
For a long time, I thought healing meant getting to the point where the pain no longer existed.
I have learned something different.
Sometimes healing means learning how to carry what happened without allowing what happened to determine who you become.
I became a mother.
I gave birth to three children.
And I know something about labor.
I know what it feels like to carry something inside of you for months, to endure the uncertainty and pain of labor, and then to hear that first cry and experience that enormous exhale:
They're here.
They're alive.
They're okay.
I didn't know at the time how deeply that experience would eventually speak to another kind of labor in my life.
My son, David Fitzgerald Walker Jr., was my only son.
David lived with serious mental-health challenges.
Eventually, I would learn what it means for a family to love someone while also watching them struggle with mental illness.
And on September 7, 2017, David died by suicide.
There are some losses that divide your life into a before and an after.
David's death was one of those losses.
After David transitioned, I had questions I couldn't answer.
I carried grief.
I carried guilt.
I questioned decisions.
I replayed moments.
I wondered what I could have done differently.
I experienced the kind of pain that doesn't simply stay in one place. It reaches into your heart, your mind, your body, your faith, your relationships, and your understanding of yourself.
But somewhere inside that darkness, something else began to grow.
Hope.
Not the kind of hope that pretends everything is okay.
Not the kind that tells someone to “just get over it.”
A hope that can sit beside you while you cry.
A hope that can acknowledge that something terrible happened and still say:
Your story isn't over.
David's death became part of the reason I began speaking more openly about mental wellness and suicide prevention.
He called me Momi.
That name became part of M.O.M.I. Moments — Mothers Of Mental Illness.
What began in grief became a desire to help other families understand that mental illness affects entire families, not only the person carrying the diagnosis.
I began wanting to create places where people could talk about the things families sometimes hide.
Places where mothers didn't have to be ashamed.
Places where people could acknowledge that they were struggling without believing that struggle made them less worthy.
Places where someone could say:
“I don't know what to do.”
and not have to say it alone.

My husband, Andrew, was also part of the landscape of my grief.
He was a Disabled Vietnam Veteran.
When I became a widow, I discovered another dimension of grief—the grief of losing the person who shared your life and then having to learn how to continue living when the life you knew has changed.
That experience eventually became part of A Widow's Hope, my desire to support widows emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally, and financially—especially military widows.
I began to understand that grief does not belong to one category.
There is grief after death.
Grief after diagnosis.
Grief after heartbreak.
Grief after losing a relationship.
Grief after losing the person you thought you were going to become.
Sometimes we grieve people.
Sometimes we grieve dreams.
Sometimes we grieve versions of ourselves.
And sometimes we are grieving while everyone around us assumes we should already be okay.
During one of the hardest seasons of my life, I was given a small plant.
I carried it with me.
I watched it grow while I was learning to grow again.
That little plant became a picture of something I was beginning to understand:
Life can still grow in a season that feels like it should have killed everything.
That became part of the language of my life.
Bloom.
Grow.
Heal.
Hope.
Eventually, I began to understand that Hope wasn't simply my name.
It was becoming my assignment.
I found myself drawn toward people who were emotionally depleted.
People who had been carrying too much for too long.
People who needed someone to listen without judging them.
Someone to help them find their footing.
Someone to remind them that their life still had value.
That is how I began to understand myself as a Professional Caregiver, Emotional Support Liaison, and Spiritual Advisor.
Not because I have lived a perfect life.
Quite the opposite.
I know what it is like to have to find your way through the dark.
And I know what it feels like when someone sits beside you long enough for you to remember that there is still light.
That journey eventually became what I now call the Hope Ecosystem.
It is not simply a website.
It is a living collection of stories, signs, creativity, faith, compassion, healing, remembrance, and people who continue choosing hope.
It exists because I believe people should not have to transition through the hardest places in their lives alone.
My son taught me that.
My husband taught me that.
My grief taught me that.
My faith taught me that.
And life continues teaching me.
I am not telling my story because I believe I have figured everything out.
I'm telling it because shame grows in silence.
And sometimes the first step toward healing is hearing another person say:
“I've been there.”
Maybe someone reading this has lost a child.
Maybe you've lost a spouse.
Maybe you're living with mental illness yourself.
Maybe someone you love is struggling.
Maybe you're carrying heartbreak that nobody knows about.
Maybe you're ashamed of something that happened to you.
Maybe you're still trying to understand why you're here.
I don't know what your story is.
But I know this:
You do not have to be ashamed of the road you traveled to arrive here.
Your story deserves to be handled with dignity.
Your grief deserves room.
Your pain deserves to be acknowledged.
And your life is still worthy of hope.
I used to think Hope was something I had to find.
Now I understand that Hope was being formed in me long before I knew what my name meant.
My mother named me Hope.
Life taught me how to carry it.
Grief taught me how fragile it is.
Faith taught me how powerful it can be.
And the people I've encountered along the way have taught me that hope becomes more powerful when it is shared.
So I tell my story now—not because my journey is finished, but because someone else may be standing at the beginning of theirs.
And if my story gives them permission to stop hiding…
If it helps someone say, “I'm struggling, too.”
If it helps a mother ask for help.
If it helps a grieving person take another breath.
If it helps someone choose to stay.
If it helps someone believe that their life can still bloom after devastation...
then perhaps some of what I survived can become a place of shelter for someone else.
That is why I tell my story.

My name is Hope.

And after everything...

Hope is alive.