When All Hope Seems Lost
December 10, 2003
The small Christmas tree looked eerily reminiscent of the one featured in Charlie Brown’s Christmas. A small, pathetic tree with bare leaves and one ornament. The tree lay toppled over next to the soup table where Christmas cards and well wishes adorned the bare branches mixed with brown, red, and gold bulbs. Off in the corner but close to the table a small pile of blood pooled. Some was smeared. Some had boot prints tracked on the edges. Most were round drops just like the red bulbs on the Christmas tree. I stared at the red bulbs then gazed back down to the blood. A portly man emerged from the kitchen with a mop while others sauntered around the dining facility rubbing their face or taking pictures.
“Hey…” It was almost a whisper followed by a gentle pause from the portly man. “We got this. Just grab something to eat.”
Nodding, I turned while still gazing at the red bulbs and blood. And then I ate in the room with blood. I think.I may have gone back to my room. Honestly, I don’t remember. What I vividly remember is the blood. People’s expressions. Panic. Fear. Screaming. I remember thinking “this is it” and laughing nervously. And I remember all hope draining out of my body as I watched my friend bleed while he begged for a glass of water.
People ask me, “What was that day like? The day you were wounded in combat?” When I think about it, it’s like looking through a kaleidoscope. Lots of broken and fragmented pieces. But it’s blurry too. And yet some of the fragments are brightest. I don’t remember being hurt, I just remember my friend bleeding. I don’t remember what we even said or did, I remember the blood and bulbs. I don’t remember feeling brave, but scared and without hope. My awards for that incident will read that I was injured, performed first aid on a fellow wounded soldier, and ran under fire attempting to retrieve medics to save his life. What I actually remember is paralyzing fear and it taking a full 5 minutes before I could move. My legs felt like tree trunks when I ran and the hopelessness in my gut had me convinced my friend was going to die. But miraculously I kept moving.
A WORLD WITHOUT HOPE
129 dead in Paris. Bombings in Beirut. Violence in Baghdad. A Syrian Civil War and refugee crisis. Racism and systemic injustice. Sex trafficking. We read the news and the world seems to have gone mad.
Addiction. Relapse. Crappy day at work. Backstabbing friends. Low-income jobs out of college or no jobs. Struggling to pay bills. We look at our lives and wonder, “Where’s the hope? When’s the better day going to get here?”
Combine the two scenarios and very quickly you begin to spiral. The world’s gone mad and our lives aren’t exactly hopeful either. It’s the perfect storm that leads us towards hopelessness and stagnation.
HOPE ON THE HORIZON
One evening I sat in a circle with a group of men. Each of us had been battered, bruised, and beat up by our addictions, coping mechanisms, or habits which eventually landed us in 12-Step. Some of us had been there years. Some a few months or days.
When it finally came time for me to share I could only look at the floor and choke out some sobs before I finally muttered,
“I’m just desperate to find healing, and it just doesn’t seem to be within reach. It just feels hopeless with every relapse.”
I went home that night and things weren’t better. In fact, life didn’t get better for a long time. But I kept going to meetings. I kept doing the exercises in my workbook. I kept meeting with my sponsor. All the while there was a fear that nothing was going to change. I was afraid I’d always be the same person, wading through the same junk, and beating myself up for it. But just like the day when I was wounded and limping around in Afghanistan, I kept moving.
The journey towards hope was a lot like getting up before dawn to watch the sunrise from the top of the Rocky Mountains. When you first wake up, you want to stay in bed, but you take a step out of the sheets and get dressed. Once dressed, you step outside, but it’s still pitch black and bitter cold. You consider getting back in bed, but finally begin to trudge up a mountain. Not because you want to, but because someone told you the trip is worth it. Along the way you trip and fall in the dark, but become more awake. Finally, you arrive at the top just as the first glimmer of light peeks over the horizon. And then for 30 minutes you sit in awe as orange, red, and yellow paint the view from the top and quietly think, “It was worth it.”
KEEP MOVING
In a world that can appear so dark and with the struggles each of us will face at times in our lives, it’s hard some days to have hope in anything. But just because we can’t see or hear it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Sometimes hope is a whisper we can’t hear in the middle of a rock concert. Even on that day I was wounded in action, I couldn’t see it, let alone feel any sense of it because every other emotion and environment was busy screaming at my senses. But just like the journey to the top of the mountain to see the sun, I continued to put one foot in front of the other. Once I saw the helicopter on the horizon coming to take my friend to safety, there was a glimmer that began to peek through all the other emotions.
Sometimes in the midst of the madness, hope is simply putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes it’s limping through our addiction towards recovery when we can’t see any progress. Sometimes it’s helping refugees or the homeless. The task and madness can even seem overpowering and like it won’t do a lick of good. But just like climbing to the top of the mountain to catch a glimpse of daybreak, whether it’s just us or a few other people, we’ll always be able to say, “It was worth it.”
Keep moving. Your journey isn’t a lost cause.
Originally published on November 15, 2015.
