Response

Zach Thompson

English 1100

9/27/13

Response Essay

Hope

What is hope exactly. Is it a feeling?  Is hope itself welcoming?  Can hope be destructive to ones self ego?  What exactly is hope.  In my own personal opinion everyone has that moment of being hopefully throughout out there life, no matter how big or small or what it is there chasing, it doesn't matter.  My own definition of hope would be a certain situation you would be in favor for to swing your way.  I say this because hope is kind of like making a wish in a way, what I mean by that is, usually when you are hopeful about something you usually are wanting something YOU want to happen.  It could vary from good to bad.  From hoping the Ohio State Buckeyes winning another National Championship, or hoping your neighbor next door gets in a car accident.  Hope can be as silly as you want it to be or as serious as you want it to be, depending on your situation.  

When I first heard the word hope, I most likely didn't understand the concept of it.  And I really don't think people do understand the word hope until the actually experience both sides of it.  To me hope has a pretty side, and an ugly side.  I can remember two distinct experiences in my life where hope has shown me its pretty and ugly side, the first being the pretty. 

I was coming in from our last day of practice. I remember the smell of pizza through out the hallway that day, for it was our championship pizza party for football.  I walked out of the locker room with my football pads as the coach pulled me in his office.  He sat me down and informed me my father was just in an tree accident and in ICU down at Grant Medical Center.  I was in shock, I didn't know either to cry or just go numb and faint.  Being in seventh grade, I waited till I went home to breakdown, I didn't want the other guys to see me upset.  While at home, waiting impatiently with my Grandmother and Grandfather to find out any news whatsoever, the phone rang.  It was my mom.  She asked my Grandfather to bring us all down to Grant Medical Center.  The whole car ride down all I was thinking to myself "I love you daddy, please make it through daddy, you're strong, you can do this."  But no matter how much I would tell myself that, the trembling that recently had occurred didn't go away.

As I walked  into the room with my family hastily, I saw him lying there.  I let out a whaling cry.  I just burst into tears, everyone did.  The doctors informed us he had broken all of his ribs, punctured both of his lungs, and suffered an extensive amount of skull damage and excessive bleeding.  After that night of being at the hospital and being monitored closely, he was going to be alright, but also have a long journey of recovery ahead of him.

To me this was one of the most hopefully points of my life hearing this news.  I couldn't express how happy I was.  From hearing about the tragic news, too seeing it right in front of my own eyes, I never lost hope, I couldn't lose hope, how could I?  He was one of the two people that brought me in this world, I wasn't about to just give up on him then.  To describe this moment would to have been like submitting yourself to someone or something who you know has all the means to do harm, but also has ability to do good, and just ask from the bottom of your heart for a helping hand.  Its incredible feeling, it really is.  I'm sure there have been many people around the world that has felt the same experience I have.  But sometimes, we're not so fortunate to experience a good type of hopefully feeling.  Call it dumb luck or your situation not panning out how you wanted it, but you've lost hope for something you have desired or wanted. 

Call it puppy love, or ones first love I thought I had obtained this my junior year in high school.  Her name was Toni.  I had met her through a friend, and the first time we met, we kicked it off great, talked for ours, had a lot of things in common, it was great!  But as everyone knows with relationships things can take a turn for the worst for no apparent reason.  

We just had finished on the phone, and happen to get ourselves in an argument.  I was aggravated and shot off my mouth, I don't recall what I said exactly, but I know it was mean and nasty, and I was filled with remorse.  Little did I know that escalated, and we ended breaking up.  This was a problem for me, cause Toni wasn't just a girlfriend, she was my best friend, she was like my other half you could say.  I was unaware that this would happen because of our fight, but unfortunately it did.  I just remember the empty feeling I felt for months, and months, and months, it was like it was never going to end.  I happen to contact her, and asked if we could talk about what happened 5 months after our breakup.  She replied "I don't have time for you in my life right now."  You know that feeling when your heart sinks five feet when you hear some bad news?  That's exactly how I felt after I heard this.

After five months of no contact, and getting a reply from her with that message, it was safe to it was time to give up hope.  Even though I didn't go into detail of what happened, I can tell you that whole time I was depressed, and always feeling mellow.  Hell I'll say it, I felt like a bitch that couldn't even get off his own knee's to help himself, looking back at it I felt disgusted and pathetic; I was weak as vulnerable.  And if giving up hope means letting go of all these feelings that made me so weak and vulnerable, than so be it.  Even though after awhile you get over it, everyone does.  And that's why I use this story as hope having an ugly side.  You see I wanted Toni back badly at the time, but there just comes a point when nothing is going your way and the only thing you can do is give up, because that is your only option.  Some things you can influence the outcomes of, some you cant.  In this particular case, nothing I did made a difference, in her eyes anyways.

Hope can be an amazing thing, and also a non-rewarding thing.  It can be uplifting and inspire, or it can be destructive and hurtful.  This all depends on your situation, and the hand of cards that God deals to you.  In conclusion, I think hope is a very unique idea we as humans can experience, with hope we can perceive to do things we thought were never achievable.