What is hope?
By Jaime
May 3, 2010
Hope. What is hope? Is it the “thing with feathers/That perches in the soul,” as Emily Dickinson wrote? Is it an empty campaign slogan used by a presidential candidate?
I like a quote from author Barbara Kingsolver: “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.”
But living inside that hope is very hard. It involves making that choice, day after day, to stay inside that hope. But where does hope fit in with cancer, more specifically, end-stage cancer?
I know the medical side of it. I know the clinical terms and am familiar with the statistics. And yes, while statistics may just be numbers, there’s also that cold hard truth of the matter. The black and white words written in the medical chart that detail the cancer and the doctor’s sobering prognosis. Hope takes on a different meaning as it is applied to different things.
What about the emotional side? As disease progresses and treatments are not yielding the expected results, how does that hope transform? What does it turn into? Maybe hope for good palliative care, quality of the time you have left, or finishing all unfinished business. Jean Kerr once said, “Hope is the feeling that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.” I like this approach. Even in the darkest times, though the outcome might not be ideal, things will not stay this way forever. Is it the most optimistic train of thought? No, not necessarily. But it’s honest. I struggle with hope, as you can tell, both personally and professionally. But sometimes, that’s all you have.
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