Absolutely agree with everything, especially about the hopefulness, the need to share our burdens in order to defeat our fears, and the open-endedness.

I'm always astonished when people say they thought The Gift was the perfect ending, because I also saw it as terribly sad. I mean, yes, it's true, every human story ultimately ends in death, but that's what's so great about Chosen, to me: it's a story that ends in life, a story that ends with a beginning.
Heaps better than leaping off a tower to save the world, IMO.