In life, we all hope for the better; even the rich hope and wish to get richer. As humans, we all want a life of luxury and pleasure, and what can I say? That's what makes us human anyway.
Hope is an inner strength that comes through for us when we are lost or worried about what to do next. As individuals, we all hope for things to get better for us in some areas of our lives; some might be in their education, some in their businesses, some in their relationships, and so on.
Even though hope does fade, when it seems that nothing good is coming, one can lose hope. Hope and faith go hand in hand, and sometimes hope is an answer to some problems.
I experienced keeping hope alive when my mom was at the point of death. This situation taught me the meaning of hope and that hoping for something to happen can take months or even years. The question is, when it takes longer than one expected, can one still keep that hope alive?
I was preparing for my secondary school leaving certificate examination when my mother felt ill. It was an unexplained illness because, as of then, I couldn't understand what it was; all I could tell anyone who asked about her was that she was ill.
This was a time when I was preparing for an important examination that would determine if I would further my education or not. At that time, I wasn't expecting any form of distraction whatsoever, not until my mother fell ill.
At first, I thought it was just a little illness, such as a fever, which would go away as soon as she took some pills, until it graduated to something that simple pills couldn't cure.
This made me ask my dad, who was trying to encourage me because, as a teenager, I was already getting terrified by the whole situation.
"She is going to be alright, right? It's just a small illness; maybe she didn't treat it on time; that's why it weighed her down, right?" I asked my dad one afternoon when he came home from the hospital.
"Don't get worked up; it's nothing to be worried about," my dad replied with a smile, but I could sense something was wrong. He was only trying to hide it behind a smile. I guess he had been told what was wrong with her.
She was so ill that she had to be taken away from home so that my younger ones and myself wouldn't feel scared whenever we saw her. Every day that goes by, my siblings always ask, "Where is Mom?".
My response was always, "She traveled; she will soon be back." That's all I could tell my siblings because they were not old enough to comprehend what was going on at that time. But all through these trying times, all I could do was hope she survived and came back home alive.
Whenever my dad comes home, I seem to have lots of questions to ask him, but I can't just bring myself to ask because I believe the saying that "there is power in the tongue," so I don't want to say anything negative.
There was a day I couldn't stomach it anymore when it was already six months and she was not yet fine. "Dad, just tell me the truth; is mom still alive?" I asked out of fear and amidst tears.
My dad looked at me and asked, "You've lost faith already? Keep your hope and faith alive; your mom is alive.".
To be sincere, I found it difficult to believe that, but I just had to keep hoping. During all this time, we weren't allowed to see her. At that tender age, it was the most difficult time in my life. It affected my studies because I couldn't concentrate on anything.
My hope for seeing my mom alive again was the only thing on my mind. When it clocked a year, my hope began to fade; all I wanted then was to see my mother again.
"Dad, now I can't take it anymore; I want to see Mom," I told my dad one afternoon when he returned from where she was being treated.
"You will see her soon; you won't be allowed where she is, but you will get time to see her soon," my dad replied.
I never believed I could go a year without speaking to or seeing my mother, but when the challenges of life hit, I saw that nothing is impossible because one never sees what will make one go through that.
After a year and two months, my mom returned. It was a day whose joy knew no bounds. Although my hope was dying, some part of me still believed she would return alive, and she did.
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