(A true story)
My hope came during the end of that sad June, when the doctors said our mother was dying from the cancer that had invaded her brain. Unable to grasp the thought of life without her, I unconsciously clung to a hope I knew was absurd — that if I went home, she would be in the kitchen drinking coffee or working outside in the yard. It was this last, lonely hope that died when she did and left me to face the reality of her death head on, without filters or illusions.
Alice’s hope came after her husband’s return from nine days in France grieving for his 20-year old son who couldn’t shake his addictions or suicidal bent. She hopes he’ll change back to the loving companion he was before he left.
“Bruno wants to find himself now.” She and I were standing in the cold parking lot after our photography class. Her husband, had come back from France two months before. “He’s 41 years old with two children, and now he wants to go off and find himself! He spent nine days over there bonding with his ex-wife, Robert’s mother. Now he says she’s his best friend and that he can’t talk with me!
“He wants to get his own apartment and have an open marriage. I told him it didn’t work with his first wife and it sure as hell won’t work with me. I told him ‘If you leave this house, leave the key, because you’re not getting back in here.’ He got upset about that. He told me it was his house too. ‘Not if you leave,’ I said.”
She paused briefly, expectantly. I felt helpless. I knew listening would help, but I wanted to do more. “Have you tried seeing a therapist–?”
“He won’t go,” she cut in. “We went once to my therapist, but it was no good. When she asked him if he understood why I might be upset that he’s calling his ex-wife his best friend and telling me that he can’t talk with me, he said he couldn’t. He says it’s all my fault, that I should be best friends with his ex-wife, whom I can’t stand. There’s no way that’s going to happen. No way!”
She looked off in the darkness towards the city. The wind was cold in our faces. “It’s terrible now,” she said. “We’re still living in the same house, but we never talk. My kids keep asking me why he and I can’t just be friends. Isn’t that awful – for your own children to ask you that?”
“Maybe you could ask him why he’s giving you all the power,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“If you’re the only one doing something wrong, then you’re the only one who can fix things. Maybe if you tell him that it will shake up his thinking a little bit.”
Alice looked away. “I don’t know.”
“What about seeing your own therapist by yourself? I think you have to accept the fact that he’s not going to change –“
“I know. I know. I’m not in La-La Land!”
“I didn’t say you were. You may know there’s no hope, but it seems like you’re acting as if you think there’s a chance he’ll go back to how he was. Maybe your therapist can help you deal with everything you’re going through.”
She looked down. “Maybe,” she said, but there was resistance and a ‘no’ in her voice. She didn’t want to give up her hope.
After a pause she thanked me, and we said good night. I don’t know what she did. That was our last class, so I never saw her again.
My hope had helped me get through my grief to my future. Alice’s hope was a hook that was keeping her turned backwards — away from her chance for a new life.