Aflame

Hope. It's an amazing thing. Simple, fragile, yet completely essential. It bears the weight of human expectation, the yearning for everything to turn out for good. Like a flame, sometimes it brightly burns, and sometimes it dies down to a flicker, but it always sparkles with the promise of a better tomorrow. And it is this promise -- hope -- that lights up all human endeavour in the midst of adversity. 

It was a small, fragile-looking elderly lady I saw in that bed by the window today. A glance at her records told me that the lined face looking at me, framed by soft white hair, was eighty years old. She had the bleached hospital blankets pulled right up to her chin, oxygen tube in her nose and IV lines in her arms -- fluids, painkillers. She stayed still, but her darting eyes indicated that she was very much aware of what was going on, actively watching and listening as the intern took notes and updated her treatment regimen, and as the registrar spoke to her daughter about the surgery required to remove the tumour.

And when he leaned over and asked her just once again if she was sure about going for surgery, she replied, without skipping a beat:

"Oh, it'll be alright."

I thought I saw it. Passing, but too obvious to not notice, like a shooting star.

The doctor was a little worried, perhaps concerned that she wasn't aware enough of the risks of surgery at her age, and that she was giving consent without sufficient understanding. He added gently:

"Yes, but you do understand that at your age, going for surgery may cause problems to your heart, to your kidney..." He gestured to his chest and side.

Her response, again without skipping a beat, confidence unwavered:

"Oh it'll be alright."

Again I saw it. Unmistakable. Resounding strong through her soft cracked voice, and aflame in her eyes.

Hope. 

Not naive words spoken in ignorance. The spoken affirmation reflected a deeper strength, a deeper determination to get through this disease. To fight, and if by chance she had to, to go down fighting. To dare to hope for the very best, whatever the prognosis looked like. 

I marvelled. I wondered if I'd have that kind of courage to hope, and say, "It'll be alright", even if I couldn't be sure of it.

Wasn't it Christopher Reeve, the 'Superman' star who became a quadriplegic at the age of 33 after a horsing accident, who once said:

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible"?

Ma'am, I really do hope all goes well for you, and you recover swift. As God has blessed you with a hope that inspires, may He bless you with everything else you need.


* Images taken from: http://www.freefoto.com/preview/90-12-58?ffid=90-12-5; http://www.bigfoto.com/sites/galery/photos13/ae6_gleitschirm.JPG.