Hope Summons the Future
“Just
as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams
reflect the past, hope summons the future.”
~
Elie Wiesel
This
is my ancient recipe box. My sister made it for me during my daughter Alexa’s
illness thirty-two years ago. Recently, one of my other daughters asked me for
a recipe. I got out the box and searched. I didn’t find the recipe for tofu
carob pie, but I did find these
recipes.
They
are in an article titled “Holiday Entertaining: Great Beginnings.” I had folded
the pages of recipes and stored them to make another day. That day has not yet arrived
and they have been in the box since the date on the pages: November–December
1986.
I
was stunned when I read the date: November–December 1986. Those two months were
the worst of my life. My seven-year-old daughter Alexa died from brain cancer
on November 2, 1986. My memory of only a few things about those months is
clear: the day she died, the day of her funeral. The other days are a blur:
Thanksgiving is blank. All I remember about Christmas is the agony of unpacking
her handmade ornaments and placing them on the tree. Christmas itself was a
nonevent. I remember wearing too-stiff new Levi’s and a pink T-shirt to a
friend’s house. I don’t remember cooking. I don’t remember giving or receiving
gifts.
What
I especially do not remember about
those two months is reading magazines. I don’t remember eating food, much less
thinking about cooking it. So of course, I don’t remember pulling these pages
of recipes from that magazine—these pages that sat untouched for thirty-one
years.
These
pages now tell me something else I don’t remember from those years
ago—something I was not aware existed in my life. These pages tell me that in
the darkest days of grief, some small part of me believed in a future. Some
small part of my psyche held what was the last thing to spring from Pandora’s
box: Hope.
I
don’t remember feeling anything beyond the most profound despair during those
days. Hope was a memory, a concept tucked deep within me—but it wasn’t so deep
that it no longer existed. My unconscious hope made me pick up a magazine about
food. That hope believed I would be hungry again. My unconscious hope moved my
eyes across the words and photos. My unconscious hope stopped at some of those
words and photos. My unconscious hope moved me toward thinking that those
recipes sounded like something good to eat. My unconscious hope moved my hands
to tear these pages of recipes from the magazine and place them in a box. My
unconscious hope believed I might cook again someday and try something new.
I say
unconscious hope because during those sorrow-filled days after Alexa died, I
believed I was in Dante’s inferno and had heeded the warning to “All hope
abandon, ye who enter here.”
When
life deals us the shattering blows of loss, one of the most life-affirming
aspects of our being is often the first to go—and that is hope.
But in those
days some part of me had not abandoned hope.
In spite of my
despair, in spite of my darkness, I now know that hope was still alive in me, a
flickering light not ready or willing to be completely extinguished by sorrow.
Those of us
who have lost children, grandchildren, and siblings know that despair. We know
that darkness. What we might not know, especially in the early stages of grief,
is that hope remains in each of us. With each breath, with each step in our
journey of healing from loss, hope is present. It becomes brighter and more
real, even if we aren’t aware that hope remains.
I wasn’t aware
of that hope in the early days of grief, but I am aware of it now. And I want
to share with you that hope is indeed present within each of us, although we
may be unaware of it. Even after the greatest loss, hope sits at our sides and
walks with us and holds and nurtures us. And as it does, hope summons our
future.
