Follow Up to Hopey: From Commune to Corner Office.
Memoir, Business
Publisher: Hunter Street Press
If you thought Hopey: From Commune to Corner Office was compelling, then Counting Hope will further inspire and challenge you.
In her memoir sequel, we follow Hope Mueller's journey into adulthood as she unwittingly recreates the dark, chaotic world she was attempting to escape. As Hope finishes college, she digs herself out of drug addiction and abusive relationships to ensure her survival. She charges forward to build a better life for herself and her two daughters. Hope reveals the most intimate and painful events of her life while illustrating an unwavering motivation to improve her circumstances and discover her true worth.
Ultimately, Hope's story shows how small, daily steps towards confidence propel us forward, even beyond our darkest hours, to a place of more joy, more purpose, more fulfillment. Written in heart-pounding flashbacks and encouraging looks forward, Counting Hope is an epic journey of liberation, empowerment, and eventual success.
Excerpt
Ping. The
elevator doors slide open. An aseptic scent bounces off gleaming white walls.
My fiancé, Tom, holds my hand, and I cling to his. I am girding for a
nightmare.
Mom must have heard the elevator. She is
the first person I see. Her eyes. Her eyes. What is she
saying? Why does she look
like that?
“Hi, Mom,” I muffle into her shoulder as
she surrounds me, holds me, squeezes tight. I can feel the tension in her back,
the tightness of her breath. “Where is Olivia?”
Tom waits by my side. “Hi, Hope,” he says.
Now it’s his turn to be embraced so radically. Olivia joins us. We hug.
She starts to cry.
“Ashlei, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I did
everything I could.”
“Olivia . . . where is Dad? Are you okay?
Where is he?
Where’s Dad?”
I look at Mom. “Can I see him?”
Olivia’s fifteen-year-old face is puffy,
and looks aged.
Her eyes hold a deeper despair than
Mom’s. She takes my hand. “I’ll go with you. Don’t leave me, Ashlei.”
“Okay, baby, okay.” I glance back at Tom.
He gives me an encouraging a nod.
I let Olivia lead me. She pushes the big
button on the wall, and one heavy double door swings inward to the critical
care unit. Mom is trailing us. Watching.
Beeps. Whooshes. More beeps. Tapping of
fingers on keyboards. The clean scent is stronger here. It is a scene from a
movie. Is this real? A tall, capable-looking nurse in
blue scrubs approaches us.
“Hi,” she smiles. The smile does not
reach her eyes. Her eyes have the same haunted look. What?
What is it? Why does everyone look like that?
Mom had told me it was bad, that Olivia
was right, that I had to come. Now I have seen three people with this stare.
What? What does it mean? I can handle it, I swear.
When Olivia called, she was hysterical
and said the paramedics had taken Dad in an ambulance. She was left at a
stranger’s house and didn’t know where she was. She was out of her mind. I
couldn’t calm her down or understand what she was saying. Her sucking sobs garbled
her words.
She couldn’t tell me who was with her.
Her hiccupping wails xii
pierced through the
phone. I tried to calm her down. I told her to breathe. I asked her if she had
called mom yet. A tiny
‘no’ emerged through the broadband. I
convinced her to call mom, even though she was worried mom would be mad at dad.
She had to call mom. Mom would know what to do.
Mom would to tell me if I needed to
worry.
Mom was three hours away when she got
Olivia’s cal . She took the next exit and headed south toward Bloomington.
Someone needed to figure out what had
happened. It was bad. Mom told me I had to come.
After the call from mom, I stood frozen,
staring at my closet. I couldn’t decide. What do I take?
What should I wear?
What if there is a
funeral? I packed everything. Maybe all the stuff could
hold me to the ground. Maybe the clothes could keep me on earth.
Now Olivia is leading me to Dad’s room.
But the nurse.
The nurse’s eyes look like Mom’s.
Olivia’s are worse. Filled with more . . . more what? More something. An emotion? A truth I
don’t understand? I have never seen this look before, a mixture of sadness,
empathy, and knowing. It is the knowing that scares me.
“You must be Ashlei.” The nurse knows me.
Knows my name.
I bob my head with a plastic smile. My
face is stone. We are suspended. There is no time. Everything is moving slow
xiii
“You are here to see your dad,” the nurse
says. Olivia is crushing my hand so hard it aches and starts to pierce the fog
in my brain.
“Yes. Can I see him?”
“Of course. You will need to put these
on.” She hands me a yellow smock and a blue facemask. Olivia reaches for her
own.
We turn to our right, and he is there. A
million tubes. A million bags. Dad is motionless except his chest rising and
falling from the air pushing through a hose snaking down his throat. I slide my
eyes across five monitors. The closest one to me has ten flat lines marching
across it.
Tears flood my eyes. I go to his side and
take his hand.
His hand is warm. I sit on a stool.
Olivia stands behind me, quietly crying. She has someone to share her grief
with; I’m here. Her sister.
“Daddy, Daddy, please wake up.” I put my
head to his hand and plead. Beg.
I feel Olivia’s body shaking behind me,
and I turn around and sob into her waist, into her belly.
I spin back and whimper into Dad’s warm
hand.
Mouthing the words on his skin. “Daddy,
please . . . please wake up.”
We are like that forever, for no time,
for always. Maybe xiv
we are still there. The
pain does not stop. We are a well of despair. The dark, cold water threatens to
consume. To bury.
Where is my dad? Did he fall
into this wel ?
Is he here too?
“Daddy, you have to wake up. You have to
wake up.
Please, Daddy, please . . .”
About the Author
Hope Mueller is an author, inspirational speaker, and a successful executive. Hope lives in northern Illinois with her husband and actively parents her four daughters and grandson. She sits on multiple non-for-profit boards, and has launched a local scholarship fund. She is the chairman and president of a charitable organization being developed in 2019. Hope's passions are found in promoting and developing leaders, youth STEM activities, and in-need community support and investment. Her early years were marked by her experiences within a hippie commune that shaped her approach and interaction with the world, and allows her to create order out of chaos.
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Twitter: @hpmueller242
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