The Driving Power of Hope – By Mathew Mammen December 2014
The Driving Power of Hope
Mathew Mammen. November 15, 2014
Over the past year, the very foundation of my life has been shaken. With that earthquake in my life, I became enlightened on the meaning and importance of hope and how it can help me live a full and proper life. Five years ago, I thought of hope as nothing more than a superficial attribute that some people possess. Hope did not give anything real or lasting. All it would do is fill people with an empty and temporary happiness that would soon fade away. Now, I feel like hope is fundamental to all humans, and it is the driving force for why we live our lives in a world that can often be quite unfair. My story starts about five years ago.
At nine years old, I had nothing to fear, nothing to bring me down, and no responsibilities to burden my shoulders. I was the happiest boy to ever live, possessing two loving parents and two wonderful younger sisters. Then, my entire life changed. On June 24, 2010, my six-year-old sister Mia died from a life-long illness. My mother and father were horrified. My littlest sister Laine, who was almost three then, had a vague idea about the circumstance, only partially understanding what was happening. For me, it was the most crushing experience I had ever gone through. However, as a nine-year-old, I was not old enough to take the full force of a tragedy like this. I was thankfully too young to fully comprehend something as great as death. Nevertheless, this shock and despair was a new and horrible feeling to me, lasting for months upon months. I could not figure out why I was so upset and distraught even when I was not thinking about Mia. Not wanting to do anything, I just couldn’t see that tomorrow would be any better, because the fact was that my sister Mia would always be dead.
Gradually, as time passed, I began to accept Mia’s death and moved forward. After all, I had my littlest sister Laine, right? Well at the time, the answer was yes. Playing with and caring for my sister, we shared many great times together. I felt like I had been blessed with a companion that would be with me through my entire life. Possessing genuine happiness, I could almost forget the pain of losing Mia.
That is, until I had to experience the horror of losing a family member for the second time, and this time, unlike my experience as a nine-year-old, I took the full force of tragedy. On February 24, 2014, Laine died from appendicitis. She died when she was six years old, just like Mia. I could not comprehend the overwhelming grief and sadness. Life had dropped not one, but two atomic bombs. Gradually, my senses came back, but that sense of life being pointless would not cease. I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I started questioning life altogether. Is life worth living? Why should I live just to go through all of this? What has happened to me as to even be asking these questions?
Slowly but surely, some answers came. I could never change the fact that I lost both of my sisters at such young ages. However, I realized that all I needed was simply one thing: hope. Hope was a trait I had seriously devalued, and I realized I needed it in order to keep going on in life.
Everyone has hope. They just don’t realize that. If a student has a very stressful day, there is a hope that tomorrow will be better. Hope gives people the power to push on even when times are dark. Life for most people in this modern world is filled with more negative times than positive times. Combined with school, work, relationships, death, and much more, many people would find it hard to live without the hope that good times will soon come around. As for me, I hope that my future will be brighter, I hope that I will be happier, and most of all, I hope that I will see my sisters again, somehow.
