We are all going to experience bad news at some time in our lives. It's inescapable to anyone who lives beyond birth. For the most part, I don't think there is any way to make bad news easier. I think people have to hear it and then find a way to process it and move on until they can deal with it. The funny thing about hearing bad news is that everyone is different with it.
Myself, I become defiant, and I count on denial to see me through. I believe denial is highly underrated. For instance, I wrote in an earlier blog how one neurologist wrote me off with my MS. I guess I could have done the mature thing and handled the disease's progress with dignity, but dignity is really not my strong point. Instead, my husband and I went into defiance mode and said, "Nah, we will pretend you didn't say that and think in our own way."
Doctors said that was not practical, and we should not get our hopes up. My response to that is WHY NOT? If you can't get your hopes up facing a crippling disease, when do you get your hopes up?
Seven years ago, my best friend found out she had breast cancer. From the very beginning, she lacked all hope. Why? Because some dumb ass social worker told her she had the aggressive kind where most people don't survive past five years. My best friend died almost five years to the day of her diagnosis with those social worker's words playing in her ears. She lived those five years in fear and dread. I went with her to every doctor's appointment, radiation,chemo,and every other specialist visit that came her way. Some of the medical staff begged her not to lose hope, to forget about the social worker's comments. They told her that they had seen people survive and live long lives. But in her head, all she heard was that social worker tell her the end was near.
I tried to have double hope for my friend. I tried to give her my hope, but that is impossible. Hope has to come from within. You can't listen to the people who say, "Don't get your hopes up, you will be disappointed." So what. I don't think disappointment matters much when you are dead. That is just me though. I could be wrong.
The reason I bring this all up is this: Lately, there has been a lot of trouble in my friends' lives -. divorce, sick children, broken relationships, health issues - well, you get the picture. I listen as best as I can, and try to offer always some hope. What I have noticed is this: Often people don't want you to talk about hope. They want to feel badly and they want to yell, and that's okay for a while. They also feel the need to try and destroy my sense of hope by telling me that a positive state of mind is a foolish state of mind. They want to tell me that God is dead or never existed because if He was around, they would not be going through this hell.
Truthfully, I never have a sufficient comeback for the "God doesn't exist" argument. That is beyond my realm of expertise. All I can ever say is that I know He is there, and He must have a plan. Typically, this is a response that makes them even angrier.
What I do say back is that hope is everything. Whether you find your hope in God or in yourself, it does not matter. Hope makes miracles happen. To live without hope is to not live. Yes, be afraid, be mad, be frustrated, but be HOPEFUL. When you make hope your strongest ally, the impossible happens.
I don't know if my best friend would have survived cancer if she had hope. What I do know is that her last five years with hope would have been far better than the five hopeless years she spent in fear and despair.
So, next time someone tells you not to get your hopes up, tell them this: Hope is the most important thing in my life now. I am going to wrap my life around hope and see where it takes me. I may not get to the place where I want to be, but I am sure I will get to a place that is a lot better than where I am now.