Member-only story
Dear Ben / Hope
3–19–2025
Dear Ben,
This is one of my favorite photos of you. Yes, I know, you are thin and pale in that picture. It was taken a few days after you left the hospital, where you had a port inserted in your chest and began dialysis.
This definitely is not your best photo. So, why do I love it? Because this picture represents the hope I had that day. You’d begun your dialysis journey. You were getting stronger. Your memory was improving. I had hope that you would live another five to ten years, as your doctor predicted.
You only made it one year. Just one.
Don’t get me wrong — I am very grateful for that year, but I had hoped for so much more.
Today, March 19th, you’ve been gone for ten months. When I took that photo, I fully expected you to be alive today. I fully expected you to be alive for a few more years.
In the past ten months, I’ve learned that we can be grateful and disappointed at the same time about the same thing.
We grew closer during your last year, and for that, I am grateful, but I am so disappointed and sad that you aren’t here now.
In the past ten months, I’ve learned that hope is nothing more than wishing for something that may or may not come to pass. It’s like buying a lottery ticket.
Hope is disappointment waiting to happen.
Missing you always . . .
© Dennett 2025
