What is this thing that we call hope?

I've been thinking about hope today. It's a feeling of expectation and desire for something to happen. It's a wish for the future, a dream, a design to try, a cancer to survive. Hope is not finite, not a simple "I hope that I survive this or that I hope to get a new bike."
Hope is a place, a possibility and smile, hug and a hand reaching out. It's a wink and a smile. It's a guidance into the journey ahead, into the unknown. Sometimes it's filled with beauty and fairy tails and other times it's filled with only a tick of a clock - a tiny hop forward into the future, a blink in time, a pause.
I've been thinking about this because I have hoped in many ways. And I have a familiar story of hoping to survive my cancer - being selfish and hoping for many more than the twenty-one years that I have been gifted. I hope, always.
Hope can also happen when it's the least likely time, when you find out that you aren't that special.:Things can,do and will happen to you.
Here is a story sponsored by TED about hope.
It is the story about a mother and her daughter.
Hope can be a smile.
Merry