I’m not completely sure what kept me up until midnight watching the monumental finish of the World Series last night. I’m not really a baseball fan. I don’t have a team. Or, like my husband says, I don’t have a dog in this fight.

Maybe, I felt like if I didn’t, I’d be missing out on good conversation today. (Or at least the true meaning of all the Facebook posts today.) 

Maybe, even deeper, I felt like I would be missing out on history being made. (Which it was.)

Maybe, I’m just a hopeful romantic and like a good underdog story where the good guys don’t always come in last.

Maybe, it’s because baseball is older than dirt and there’s something about it that reminds me of old-fashioned America, good family values, and apple pie.

I don’t really know where the emotions came from as I watched the final pitches, the hits, the outs. Though I had checked in on who won and lost the last few days, before that, I didn’t even know the baseball season was going on. 

I’ve not been invested at all, yet, there I was, on the edge of my seat, with butterflies flitting around in my stomach.

After that last out, I found even my uninvested self letting the tears fall freely while watching the team and fans celebrate their long awaited victory. Emotions overwhelmed me while listening to the players get choked up and have no articulate speech for the reporters. 

I felt like I had been with the Cubs from day one. 

And for a brief moment, I felt like all was right in our country. I felt like people across the nation are good and true. I felt like maybe things aren’t as bad as the news reporters are telling us. I felt like my four daughters will have a future that is bright.

Even this morning, as I scroll through Facebook and see the emotional responses from diehard fans everywhere, tears swell up and I, again, experience the feeling of wistful hope rising up.

Hope.

I think maybe the Cubs’ victory last night is a reminder of hope. That if we continue to just have faith and believe, there is hope for a win… even if it takes 108 years.

As we are surrounded by uncertain times in our world, I think the ending the of 2016 World Series is a reminder that miracles really do happen, if we can just hold on to… hope.

Image via Associated Press