Recently, a close friend of mine sent me a letter (my very first in a decade, as few people write letters nowadays due to emails and text messages). However, he was heartbroken. After reading the two-page letter, I sensed that he must have penned it to relieve the anguish he had been enduring.
When I inquired if I could quote some excerpts from his letter, he encouraged me to proceed: “I am uncertain about my feelings at this moment. However, because I failed to wish you a happy birthday on February 29, you questioned my sincerity. Indeed, I called you that day, and you were anticipating me to utter those two words: Happy Birthday. Yet I did not greet you.
“The truth is, I genuinely did not realize it was your birthday. Had I been aware, I would have wished you well. You mentioned that you are not particular about birthdays, but yours occurs only once every five years. I concur with you on that.
“I have attempted to reach you multiple times. I have sent countless text messages that I can no longer keep track of. Additionally, I have composed several emails. However, you have completely disregarded my efforts. Since that time, I have felt guilty for not wishing you a happy birthday.
“Subsequently, I received a text from you indicating that our relationship had come to an end. In your lengthy message to me, you expressed that your heart has become numb. You stated that you do not feel anything. You described your heart as fragile and mentioned that you do not wish to experience pain again.
“The last time this occurred was during your breakup with your previous partner. Now, you find yourself in a similar situation. I sincerely apologize if I have contributed to this pain. It was never my intention to cause you distress. You are the love of my life. I have never loved anyone as deeply as I love you. You hold immense significance in my life.
Can you also empathize with what he is enduring? The concluding words resonated with me the most: “But I am hoping that one of these days you will realize that we were both mistaken in our assumptions. I hope that one day you will return to my embrace, ready to embark on a new chapter of our love.”
Hope. That’s the word that caught my attention. As one unknown author said, “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.”
C. Neil Strait has the same opinion: “Take from a man his wealth, and you hinder him; take from him his purpose, and you slow him down. But take from man his hope, and you stop him. He can go on without wealth, and even without purpose, for a while. But he will not go on without hope.”
Pelagius said, “There is no worse death than the end of hope.” An Arabic proverb reiterates, “One who has health has hope, and one who has hope has everything.” And Erich Fromm advised, “To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.”
François Duc de La Rochefoucauld admitted, “Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.” To which an unknown writer penned: “When the world says, ‘Give up,’ hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.’”
I was reminded by the words of William Shakespeare. In Measure for Measure, he wrote: “The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.” Film actor Christopher Reeve, when he was still alive, declared, “Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.”
In a remote part of the world, a gloomy, brooding, cold, and lonely darkness lingered. Suddenly, a small light emerged in that desolate corner. Although it was diminutive, it was indeed a light. Someone had placed it there. It simply remained and emitted its glow.
A passerby commented, “Do you not believe you would serve a greater purpose elsewhere rather than in this forsaken corner?”
“Why?” inquired the little light. “I shine because I am light. And due to my shining, I am a light. I do not shine to be noticed. No, I shine because it brings me joy to illuminate and to be a light.”
However, when the dreary darkness heard this, it clenched its teeth and, filled with rage, attempted to extinguish the light. Yet the immense darkness was powerless against the small light.
“Hope is a light we keep inside that no one can touch,” Jermaine J. Evans once said. Anne Lamott also remarked, “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.”
Helen Keller pointed out, “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
That was what Mikhail Bulgakov also used to explain hope in The White Guard. He wrote: “Everything passes away – suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?”
Are you broken-hearted? Did you fail the examination you were taking? Though it seems the world is turning against you? Do you feel no one cared for you? Don’t fret.
American president John F. Kennedy advised, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
And Aragorn, in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, told us: “There is always hope.”
