Hope

This month's edition of Coping magazine (which focuses on coping with cancer) features an article on Hope, written by an oncology nurse. (Oncology nurses are, in general, among the most wonderful people in the world.)

The article is called "Holding on to Hope," and it discusses Hope in the way the poet Emily Dickinson discussed Hope:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

Read that again and think about it.

To me, if Hope is a bird that doesn't stop singing, then there's something about hope that involves never giving up.

Of course, just the idea of never giving up can be exhausting, and as this oncology nurse points out, sometimes Hope exists in opposites -- "sorrow and gratitude, inner strength and weakened abilities, withdrawing and embracing." Hope can still be there even if it's almost silent. As Dickinson's poem says after the opening, the bird of hope is heard "sweetest in the gale," best and strongest when times seem toughest.

It's kind of a heady article, this Coping magazine piece. Hard to get a handle on -- like Hope, sometimes. But the author is good about giving some practical tips for keeping hope alive. My favorite:

"Anticipate survival. Many people have gone before you. Picture yourself among them – after treatment and doing well."

Hard to do sometimes. But you don't need hope when the sun shines, do you? It's in the gale that the song is sweetest, the Hope is most necessary, and our strongest selves shine through.