Hope and Hoping
Hope is the space between symptoms and diagnosis, between diagnosis and prognosis. It is the wrestling match between science and compassion, between body and spirit, between pain and relief. It is the dilemma between fearing to be alone and hungering for privacy.
Hoping is waiting: for test results; for appointments; for the organism to heal and the spirit to rekindle. Hoping is walking the line between tolerating constant probing and invasions, and declaring, "No more, not now." The hope for survival is not the only hope, many days, not even the overriding hope. The real hope is not to be invalid.
Hoping is knowing that someone is making an effort to help. That family is never far way. That the system cares. That what happens is the best of technology and the best of humanness. Hoping is being attended by people who understand that caring makes a difference. An immeasurable difference.
Hoping is being treated, not as another case of a particular disease, but as a person. By people who understand that this could happen to them. Knowing that there are no secrets. Being a partner on the treatment team. Being encouraged to do as much as possible for one's self.
Hoping is trying again. Moving against the odds. Knowing everything that can be done is being done. Knowing the caring will go on even when the limits of science are reached. Hoping is denying the statistics. Reaching beyond the traditional. Keeping open the possibility of being the exception.
Hoping is listening to the unconscious. Having dreams in the world of sleep and having dreams in the world of the conscious. Wondering if there are miracles. Being fascinated with the little miracles: the words that heal; the memories that let us forget.
Hoping is having passion for life. Noticing life. Wanting life. Inching toward life. Being willing to embrace life despite the risks. Hoping is recognizing that death is not the enemy - never living is.
I recognize that hoping is being able to trust myself. To sense who else is trustworthy. To sense that death is not the worst of things. To notice that life is available for celebrating. To appreciate the remarkableness in the ordinary …
I know that hope is in the gratitude for today, the mystery of tomorrow.
-- from The Voice of Illness, an essay by Ronna Fay Jevne, Ph.D.
(This essay appears in A Dialogue with Cancer: Reflections on Illness and Healing, edited by Susan Nessim and Diane Shader Smith, 1996, and published with an educational grant from Pfizer, Inc. Copies of this anthology are available in Reflections and the Resource Center library.)
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