The Complexity of Hope

At the hospital, there's a harpist who plays regularly. She's an older woman, with a sweet smile, and beautiful hands - she plays melodies that dance across the strings, light and joyful.

She's not there every day, and she's never in the same spot. She shows up randomly, and seems to disappear just as quickly. I see her almost every time we're here in the hospital - and yet she always catches me by surprise.

But every time I hear her, I think of hope.

I think of how it whispers into dark places, shines in silent corners, and shows up when you least expect it, like the perfume of an unseen flower. It's strong and sweet and stands in stark contrast to the sterile halls, bright orange ER passes, weary smiles and tear-stained cheeks.

I think of hope, and how hard it is sometimes - how elusive it feels on the hard days, and how dangerous it feels on the good.

At each trail marker, we have been thankful to get pretty good news - prognosis is good, Jon's particular cancer is curable, the cancer was stage 1, the tumor is shrinking at the mid-point PET scan - and yet at each point, we celebrate, but can't really seem to fully exhale or feel like we're in the "safe zone." I was explaining to a friend earlier that a cancer diagnosis is always unexpected and almost always a moment "when the worst that could happen, happens" and "when the odds are not in your favor." Once that happens, it's very hard to fully feel like things won't fall apart on a dime again. Numbers and odds have failed you - and there's no guarantee that those "good news" will remain.

To hope - to expect good news and positive outcomes - it's risky. Because it might not happen, and that totally-realistic-for-normal-people castle that you've built in the sky, like celebrating your 40th birthday, it all can come crashing down just like that. And hope dashed is devastating, crushing - almost worse than not hoping at all, because it feels like it can utterly destroy you.

But to not hope at all - to stay safely cynical and pessimistic - well, that's not to live either. That option leads to despair, anxiety, and depression. There is no joy in that - and it renders a life that is cloudy and gray all the time - you die, while still yet alive. And so we walk in a balance - hope, but restraint; optimism, tempered by your current "normal." The juxtaposition of essential hope, intermingled with the knowledge that nothing is guaranteed.

We, Jon and I, have a lot of hope actually - I am very hopeful that we'll have many, many more years together for Jon to make inappropriate jokes about dying - but it always feels like it's breathed out in somewhat bated breath, fully aware that things can look perfect and then your world can fall apart in a day. I've been told once you make it a few years out, it gets easier - but when you're in the thick of it, it's hard. Even the simplest of hopes feels like it needs a qualifier. Please don't take this to mean we lack hope - but understand with us that it's complex, even while it is still fully hope. We're running a marathon, not a sprint - we celebrate each mile marker, but we still have to keep running, and so that full exhale feels elusive until we finish the race - and the "finish line" feels like it keeps moving. The biopsy, the PET scan, the next PET scan, the next follow-up appointment, two years of remission, five years of remission, etc. The most helpful thing that I have found for maintaining hope, through a season such as this, is incredibly simple: it is "to not to," as our kids would say. By that I mean, to not rely on hope *for the future*, because while much is hoped for, nothing is guaranteed. Rather, to practice gratitude and fullness in the present. There's nothing like having your world rocked to make you appreciate each moment that you do have together. Sleeping in a hospital chair is hard - dealing with temper tantrums and meltdowns and odd side effects is not fun - but in the contrast of not being able to be with that person, even those uncomfortable moments seem sweeter. Similarly, when all of a sudden time becomes finite - whether prognosis is good or not - you stop putting things off in the name of "sensibility." You plan the trip, you go on the fun outing, you go in late for work, you skip the dishes, you say yes more, you hide less. There are ways that facing your own mortality frees us from our own inhibitions. If I could give one piece of advice for those not affected by cancer (or life-altering illness) currently - and those who are - it would be don't put things off. This is the only life we get. Hope for the future, absolutely. Cling to hope, yes, please do. We absolutely are too. But live your life fully right now. Be grateful for the little things, each and every one of them. Hope grows when you see that even in the crappiest of moments, there are still things for which to be thankful. Because when you're grateful in the darkest hours, then you see, that no matter what the future holds, no matter how dark or scary, there will be good then too. Hope blossoms when watered with gratitude. Seize the moments you are given - you'll notice more of them when you're practicing gratitude - and choose to be present fully, whether in monotonous tasks that you have to do, or throwing caution to the wind and doing what you want to do "someday" today. Celebration and mourning are opposite sides of the same coin - they are both attributes of being fully present and grateful for what you have/had. To celebrate is to be present, as is to mourn - and both are to be grateful. And if you're in survival mode - and hope feels elusive, and gratitude and "seize the moments" feel like nonsense words spoken by motivational speakers - and you just need to put your head down and stumble forward, that's okay. I can write this post now, but next week, I'm going to be right back there again with you, as we go into lock down to get Jon through neutropenia for the (hopefully) last time... It comes and goes in waves, the drowning and breathing. But when your head finally comes up for air, no matter how brief the breath, look around for places to be grateful - to celebrate or to mourn - no matter how little they are. The silly joke you shared. The ER nurse who brought you coffee. The rain that didn't fall. The one night without the temper tantrum. The one stat that was good. The harpist that plays in the hospital. The giant elephant you found in the store that your son would love.

Listen for the sweet strains of hope, sometimes made up of single notes of gratitude in the day-to-day... and hum their melodies in your head, over and over and over again, until you can still hear them, even when you're under water... That, my friends, is the complexity of hope (at least for me) in the storm.