AUDACIOUS HOPERS HOPE FOR THINGS

Audacious hopers hope for things No practical person would dream of hoping for, Things we are certain can never happen Given the current circumstances. Audacious hopers drive us crazy Because they simply will not listen To our predictions about the future. Audacious hopers are in denial! There’s nothing quite so irritating As trying to protect audacious hopers From the disappointment we’re afraid they will face. Audacious hopers test our courage! BUT: Audacious hopers change the world And when they do we call them heroes. We buy magazines with articles about them And hire them to make motivational speeches. When audacious hopers tell their stories About the people they met on the journey, I’d rather be named as the one who supported Than mentioned as the barrier who had to be thwarted.

A WEEKEND IN MILWAUKEE

I have spent my entire adult life with a man whose first instinct is always to help others. It could be that our mutual attraction took root for this reason. People who have disabilities have a natural affinity for those whose first instinct is to help others, particularly for those who do it automatically, making it appear to be effortless, seldom expecting either recognition or reward. I have benefited from the attention of many friends of this type, but only one of them has made the ultimate commitment of living with me. I have sometimes thought that my life mate is his own worst enemy. His helping costs him time, energy money. I have sometimes thought that I might be his worst enemy. I like to help others also, and many of the things I volunteer to do for others end up involving him as a support to my helping efforts. It did not surprise me when he offered to help me take aquacise classes. I had a bad back that needed pain relief. He said, “It won’t hurt me either. I feel a bit stiff when I exercise at the gym. Going to the gym was one of the things he did for his own benefit, but he looked for a way that he could help me at the same time. It didn’t surprise me when he offered to drive me to classes in the Alexander Technique. I thought it would help with my bad back. But it did surprise me a bit when he said he would also take Alexander instruction. “I could probably use a bit of help with posture and balance,” he said. We have spent many happy hours exploring unfamiliar cities. Last weekend we went to Milwaukee. Milwaukee is the city of historic breweries, and the filming of Happy Days. Its streets sport the unpretentious homemade brick buildings that formed the backdrop for the simple working lives of the likes of Laverne and Shirley. We did not have time to see any of this on our visit to Milwaukee. Our time was spent at a medical conference in a suburban hotel marooned in a concrete jumble of major highways, choked off by acres of parking lot that feed entry into the malls and restaurants of the big-box era. It was the kind of conference to which I am often recruited as a speaker on hope, a collective of knowledgeable doctors gathered together by a collective of tireless volunteers to provide information on a rare disease to patients and their families. If such a conference were held at an interesting location, I would go as a speaker, and my life mate might join me as a speaker’s helper. But this conference was different for us. Nobody knew I was a student of hope. In this strange environment where every person present was a new introduction, he was a patient, and I was family. “I’ll take notes on the presentations,” I promised myself. “I’ll wait until later to think about hope.” Much of the talk was about the consequences of cerebellar atrophy—problems with balance, with stiffness, and so many other things for which the medical profession has no immediate remedy through pills or surgery. Each of us filtered the information through our own experience, our hopes, our fears, the plans we ought to make. My life mate, we observed, appeared to be among the very healthiest of all the patients at the conference. His relative health might be attributed to our proactivity in noticing change and presenting the story to doctors. It might be attributed to our audacity in attending such a conference at an early stage. It might be attributed to chance. One theme wound its way through the endless data presented by the professionals. Each one of them stressed the value of taking charge. “Do all you can. Keep yourself in shape. Prevent yourself from losing ground. Exercise. Work with your abilities.” I thought back to things that had been helpful at early stages, to aquacise, to the Alexander lessons. I thought how those sustaining therapies had been put into place before we had the awareness to measure their effects, before we had acknowledge the influence of a problem that reached beyond the limits of the decline you can expect as a result of aging. And then I remembered that these things came to him in the process of his volunteering to help me. Could it be that there are times when those with the strongest helping instincts are not their own worst enemies? How often have I met wonderful people who, in helping others, have been their own best friends? Ultimately, when it comes to hope, the part of my world that is hopeful has, within its boundaries, a lot of helpful people.

BELONGING IS THE KEY TO HOPE, HOPE FOUNDATION WINS A LAUREL AWARD

Congratulations to Lenora LeMay and her team on winning a Laurel Award for Post-secondary aboriginal Camps. . The Hope Foundation organized post-secondary camps for aboriginal students at the University of Alberta in May and November of 2011. The students, grades 5-7, came from Montana School at Hobbema and Mother Earth School, just west of Edmonton. The program was funded by. Given the right conditions, university is a good place to foster hope. It can show young people some possibilities for the future they might choose when they graduate from high school. At a glance we might think of post-secondary education as something that fosters hope because of the career possibilities it opens. But two instructors, Tracy Bear and Margaret-Ann Armour, gave interviews in preparation for the writing of this article. Coming from different perspectives, both stressed the importance of presenting the university as a place where these young students could feel that they would belong. Belonging, they said, was something the students would need to imagine before they would see a university as a place of hope for them. Tracy bear is passionate about university. As she strives to earn her third university degree, she is well acquainted with the obstacles that face aboriginal students. Tracy is Special Advisor to the Vice President academic. “We brought them to lunch in the council Chambers,” she says. We wanted to teach them how a university is run. So I asked them how many aboriginal University of Alberta students they believed there would be. Would there be 50, 100 or 1,000? They thought there would be 50, or 100. But I said No! There are almost 1,000.” Just knowing that so many of our people are on campus might be a trigger for them to say, ‘Hey, I belong here.’” Tracy remembers moving to various locations across Canada and never seeing another face and eyes that were brown like hers. She also recalls a time, just three months ago, when she went up in an elevator with five other women. All five were aboriginal, and each of them has a Ph.D. She says, “I just wish that the media and Canadian society could see those moments and see that there is so much more to aboriginal people than we usually see.” Asked why she is so passionate about the university option she says, “Coming to university has opened up a whole universe of opportunities that I never imagined. I planned to get one degree and go back home. At the start I wasn’t thinking of getting three. I went to New Zealand and I learned that there are aboriginal people around the world who are in similar situations.” At Hope Camp, Tracy taught a course in visual journaling. Using pictures as well as words, she guided the students through a process of documenting their camp experience. She hopes that future hope camps will have more involvement from some of the aboriginal students in faculties such as medicine and dentistry. She is now working with a team to develop an aboriginal gathering place at the centre of the campus. She says, “I am hoping this will be the starting place for future aboriginal hope camps. Having the students come on campus and not just see me, but seeing other aboriginal people doing all sorts of amazing things is, I think, the absolute idea of hope. It’s a fantastic camp and I love being involved.” Dr. Margaret-Ann Armour, a professor renowned for her efforts to make science accessible to a wide range of people, also mentions the need to belong. She tells a story to explain how this idea influenced the manner of her teaching. “When those students came in to the lab the group was quiet. Normally I would get things going by asking questions. But that wouldn’t be the right thing here. They need time to feel that they belong. So I talked for a while and then I went right into having them make nylon.” The process of making nylon went very well. By the time the nylon was made, the students were involved. They were ready to ask and answer questions. After that, they went on to make Bakelite. She believes it is important for all of us to understand that science isn’t something that experts do in labs. Science is happening all around us, in the natural world, in our own bodies. Asked how an interest in chemistry might be extended beyond a single camp, Margaret-Ann said, “We have to make opportunities available for lifelong learning. The more you learn and the more you find interesting, the more likely you are to want to learn more. With aboriginal students, we come with baggage. Maybe we don’t work as hard to get them interested.” Margaret-Ann’s philosophy of science extends beyond the experiments that can be done in a lab. “Science can be informal.” It includes things known and understood through observation and experience. “Sometimes we devalue this knowledge because we think of it as not being proven by experiments. I hope the students will want to go on learning more about science. I try to talk about things that are meaningful in the life of the group.” Observing the group like any scientist worth her salt, Margaret-Ann noticed that “The group did a wonderful job of making nylon. Nobody did anything they weren’t supposed to, nobody spilled anything. I noticed that they had good hands.” When she mentioned this to their teachers, she was told that many of the students would have had experience making bannock. Hope is different things to different people. A post-secondary hope camp for young aboriginal students is one way that the Hope Foundation, working with partners, can foster a sense of boundless possibility, create a feeling of belonging, and ultimately offer a key to a future filled with hope.

AUDACIOUS HOPER, LENORA M. LEMAY

Audacious hopers hope for things no practical person would dream of hoping for, things we are certain can never happen, given the current circumstances. Audacious hopers have led the way to change throughout the history of humankind, and they are, thankfully, here with us today.
One of my favourite audacious hopers is Lenora M. LeMay, a long-time colleague at the Hope Foundation of Alberta. It is to her that I turn when I need to catch a case of hopefulness. It is from her that I often borrow hope to tide me over when my own supply gets low.
That said, the process of hoping that happens between Lenora and me is rarely a simple unfolding of positivity. I often try to convince her that things are impossible. I try hard and I ought to be able to succeed at this. I can be very persuasive when I make up my mind to be. But Lenora has a way of refusing to take “no” for an answer. If I say a thing can’t be done, she says it can. If I say: “Tell me how,” she comes up with some idea that has at least 10,000 flaws when I count them. That’s the thing that makes Lenora my hope hero. She sees possibilities where I don’t.
The results of Lenora’s hope-motivated persistance combined with her boundless energy can be seen in so many accomplishments credited to the Hope Foundation over the past dozen years. Because of her, Norquest College started a program of hope studies embraced by many health care professionals. Because of her, there is a book of strategies and practices for doing hope work in classrooms. Because of her, the work of the THI, arguably the most important research project I did at Hope Foundation was finally documented—eight years after I finished working on it. Because of her, the administrative structure of Hope Foundation has functioned through hard times without sacrificing any of the program areas.
Even as I write this, I can hear Lenora reading it. I know what you are saying, Lenora. You are saying, “Oh stop! I didn’t do any of this alone. All my colleagues helped, and so many people from outside as well. Board members helped me. Kids helped me. Teachers helped me. My husband helped me.”
This, Lenora, is definitely true. But I hardly think that you can seriously deny that your steadfastness is the common factor in all these examples. Audacious hopers inspire others and make room for them to help when there’s work to be done. There’s probably no limit to the number of things that can be accomplished if you decide not to care who gets the credit.
Over the years I’ve learned, usually later than I wanted to, to step back and watch you in curious wonder. I have noticed how, at some point, I then find it impossible to stay back. Compelled by an irresistible force that can only be labelled as hope, I find myself joining you in trying to make possible the thing I wanted all along.
It’s scary to work with audacious hopers. They test our courage. They dare us to disappoint them. We are constantly challenged to position ourselves in relation to them, to search ourselves for that which matters most. Sometimes audacious hopers make us want to hide. Hiding seems easier than facing the hard stuff.
My years at Hope Foundation have exposed my ears to the stories told by thousands of audacious hopers in the heady days after success—large or small--has been attained. These stories challenge me to wonder what I would have done if they had asked for my help during the trying time. From this has come one firm conclusion. When audacious hopers tell their stories, about the people they met on the journey, I’d rather be listed with the ones who supported than named as a barrier that had to be thwarted.

YOU CAN BEAT STUTTERING

Everyone ought to have a friend like my friend Jim, a man who goes out of his way to send me information that ought to give me hope. Last week he sent along an article about Annie Glenn, wife of the famous astronaut John Glenn. Limited by a stuttering disability, she was successfully treated.
John Glenn’s True Hero

GETTING A JOB

A tip of the hope hat to Edmonton's last milkman on his final run; Barry Svederus retires Friday after 34 years, marking the end of an era
Sometimes you hear the most amazing stories about being hired against the odds. They give you hope when you despair at how difficult it can be to find work. How I wish I’d seen this story earlier this week, when I was searching for hopeful stories to tell at our hope and strengths group for people with chronic pain. People were saying it was unlikely that they could be hired, given some of their life conditions.
That conversation, quite naturally, led me to want to tell them a story about an unlikely hiring event. Of all the getting-hired stories I’ve heard, I do believe this one takes the cake.
‘A native of tiny Elnora, Svederus was working at a cannery in Wetaskiwin when he sought a job driving a milk truck in Edmonton.

Arriving for his interview at the former home of the City Dairy, a building off Jasper Avenue that had a towering milk bottle on its roof, he was hired,
even though he applied in his bare feet.

As a joke that day, friends had filled his only pair of dress shoes with ballbearing grease.

"I think they hired me out of pity," Svederus says.

"They figured I was so poor I didn't own a pair of shoes."’

THE FAMOUS FIVE ARE A SYMBOL OF HOPE

All Canadians owe debt to Famous Five; Their fight was a foundation for human rights and equality laws

Paula Simons: “In Canada today, we are all, women and men, straight and gay, third generation, or aboriginal or brand-new immigrant citizen, persons, with the same legal
rights and privileges. We all get to vote.”

It wasn’t always that way. Five women made it possible, Emily Murphy, Irene Marryat Parlby, Nellie Mooney McClung, Louise Crummy McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards.

helen keller on pessimism

"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit." - Helen Keller

If I could talk to Helen Keller, just spend an hour or two spelling words into her hand and hearing her speak in reply, I know exactly how I’d spend it. I’d start with a question: “Helen,” I’d say, “Would you please help me understand how it is that you have been able to maintain such a relentlessly optimistic outlook?”
It’s funny that I should be asking questions of Helen Keller, a folk hero who died in 1968. Helen Keller never knew it, but she and I have had a lengthy, rocky relationship. Life is full of surprises.
I dared not admit it in public, but the truth is, I did not admire Helen Keller when I was young. Admiring her was so fashionable, so done! I prided myself on being an original thinker, a critical analyst. There was much about the legend of Helen Keller that bothered me.
Her writing bothered me. I read some of her books and judged them to be untruthfully sappy. Her comparability bothered me. I looked upon the real deafblind citizens of Edmonton and felt the pain they must have felt when they were expected to measure up to her standards. Her wealth bothered me. I saw how impoverished other deafblind people were, lacking the financial resources of Helen’s wealthy father. Her teacher bothered me. I saw how isolated most deafblind people were, lacking a lifelong devoted teacher like the ever-faithful Anne Sullivan.
It is not too surprising that I felt something akin to joy when I began to discover evidence that Helen might not have been perfect. I heard Helen’s voice on the radio. It sounded horrible, almost not human! “Aha!” I said to myself, “You weren’t perfect!” I read that attending a dinner party with Helen was an experience in frustration. Helen, unaware of table conversation, would constantly interrupt. “Aha!” I said to myself. “More proof that you weren’t perfect!”
So now that I’ve finally come clean, confessed all this in public, it humbles me to also admit that somewhere along the lifeline, I joined that throng of billions who consider Helen Keller a personal hero. I know she wasn’t perfect, yet I look to her for inspiration. I think she would have been a great supporter of hope studies. Her comments on pessimism are actually unarticulated comments about optimism. She lived a philosophy of hope.
Helen Keller was not born a hero. She had potential and she became one, took her place as a hero—a celebrity—a well known person with power and influence. She possessed superior intelligence and didn’t waste it. She had wealth and she used it. She spent years in the company of an uncharacteristically faithful teacher and she put those years to very good use. As a deafblind person, she was a curiosity, a creature who could interest the public. She is my hero because she put all of this together and did extraordinary things. She attended dinner parties with powerful citizens. She wrote books. She addressed large crowds. She used these opportunities to work for charities and speak out on important issues. She was, in fact, a radical social activist.
When I was young, I thought I was alone in my rebellion against the lily-white saintly image of Helen Keller. In fact, I was not alone. I would later discover that many other people with disabilities were travelling my cynical path. Yet I have never met a person who could successfully present evidence to show that Helen was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill person. Nor have I encountered evidence that she was anything but an eternal optimist.
As such, she remains, in my estimation, a personal authority on the power of optimism, coupled with opportunity. If it is true, as she wrote, that pessimists don’t discover the secrets of the stars, or sail to uncharted lands, or open dorrs to the human spirit, might it be partly because they don’t have opportunities, and partly because they don’t do much with the opportunities they have?

KATHRYN TUCKER WYNDHAM, I'M GOING TO MISS YOU!

I’d never heard of Kathryn Tucker Wyndham when first I went to hear her tell stories in a huge tent in Jonesborough Tennessee. I’ve never forgotten her since. Her first story was about a man named Ernest who gave a legacy donation to the public library in Selma Alabama. It was a library he had not been permitted ot use as a boy—because his skin was black. The second story she told was about the Sunday afternoon comb concerts on the lawn of the Selma Library, concerts at which everyone can play. The third story was about her coffin, fashioned under her direction by a craftsman friend from the finest wood, now waiting in her garage, buried under piles of unused china and other household goods.
She was 88 years old when I first heard her stories. So inspiring were they that they took my breath away.
It is easy to watch a little of Kathryn Tucker Wyndham. The Montgomery advertiser has saved her for us at Kathryn Tucker Wyndham Dies at 93 I am grateful that it is easy to see you on line Kathryn. I wasn’t ready to give you up yet.
I shall think about you, Kathryn, when I need to find hope: that the world can be more tolerant; that elderhood will be a time of learning good things; that laughter can overcome just about anything; that we can choose the best from history and use it to give hope to others. I shall think about you, Kathryn, and thinking about you will give me hope.

BRINGING HOPE TO OTHERS

The most useful thing I have learned about bringing hope to others is this: I have to keep a huge inventory of stories, symbols and language that grounds my own hope. I do this so that I can still find my hope at the times when I don't appear to be successful at bringing hope to others. Far from being a well ordered searchable catalogue, my inventory is a random assortment of positive societal changes I have noticed, things that turned out better than I expected, times when I was okay but didn’t know it, and physical reminders of pivotal life events. I polish this collection regularly and
keep it firmly centred in my mind. When I need them, I choose items from the inventory to remind me that I can hope even when the world refuses to change at my behest. I need them more often than I ever could have imagined.
Yesterday I found myself trying to jot a simple answer to a question asked by Loraine, a psychologist who works with troubled teens. She wrote:”How can I help bring hope back to those who have hoped and been repeatedly disappointed and with good reason do not believe in hoping for anything?”
It’s a good question, one faced by so many of us in the helping professions. As Karen W. Saakvitne so aptly states in an article entitled How to Avoid the Occupational Hazards of Being a Psychotherapist, “psychotherapists hear that which society wishes to silence.” Society wishes to silence it for good reason. Hearing it makes us feel terrible!
The act of opening ourselves to hearing terrible things presents us with two important challenges, the obligation to do our best for the people we are helping, and the duty to be all right after we have done the work. As we strive to improve our professional practice, we tend to search for better tools we can use to help others, losing sight of the things we might need to do so that we ourselves can be healthy.
Loraine had mentioned hope to a troubled teen. He had said,”When you hope for something it never happens. Chances of it succeeding are 0.7 million zeros, no, infinite zeros!" You can bet that every one of those zeros represented a disappointment, a time when adults and friends had failed him. No wonder Loraine felt stuck. I felt stuck also when I first read his words. Why should such a boy be expected to hope again?
I myself rarely work with troubled teens. On the matter of dealing with them, I have very little advice to give. Yet even as I read her question, characters from my hope inventory were lining up, ready to parade along the road of my consciousness. Among them was the teacher who once lived under a large tree in the far corner of the grounds of the school where he now teaches. Following close behind was a woman who told me that her life was changed by foster parents who took her in when she was 16. These leaderly adults, now the prize of our society, came to me, real and clear, raising my hope by their very presence. They had been through hard times. They had not turned out as expected. What could I do but thank them for reminding me that, when I get to thinking that nothing good can come of a situation, it’s time to start doubting myself?
To Loraine I wrote: “Implicitly your very presence and interest likely brings hope because you are a caring, reliable adult. This is the most important thing to keep in mind when you are working. You are already bringing hope. It is all too easy to forget this when you get bogged down in agreeing that they have no reason to hope because they have been disappointed.” When I wrote this I was imagining the adults who, in years to come, would remember Loraine’s caring. I was hearing the stories they would tell.

Saakvitne, Karen W., (2001). How to Avoid the Occupational Hazards of Being a Psychotherapist, Innovations in Clinical Practice: A Source Book (Vol. 20) P329.

TO THE LEDUC SIGHT-SEEKERS

A shout out and thanks for a few good laughs in a lively chat about hoping, coping and moping after a vision loss. I was invited to your monthly get-together by Mary, who said, “We need somebody to tell us not to feel sorry for ourselves.”
But even though all of us need a bit of encouragement once in a while, there really was no need for a lecture on self-pity. You hadn’t the time for such a thing because you were busy signing up your members to help with the CNIB’s upcoming vision awareness project.

CELEBRATING GOOD NEIGHBOURS

Dawn was only moments away when I awoke to behold my very favourite kind of May morning. Light had not yet touched the horizon. Robins were advertising for mates. A slight breeze was teasing the drapery strings and then—here was something new—I rolled over and found myself face to face with the guy who won the Good Neighbour award for Edmonton’s Ward 6. You might say that I’m his very closest neighbour. Perhaps he was thinking that also.
“You must have helped them with the nomination,” he said on the day when he first heard about the coming honour.
“Actually, I didn’t,” I confessed sheepishly. The nominator was another woman, Lorna Thomas, vice-president of the Riverdale Community League. I would have helped if she’d asked, but she didn’t need me. Her information, limited as it was, was comprehensive enough to clinch the case.
Last night we attended a gathering to celebrate the contributions of 12 good neighbours and a vigorous band of Snow Angels. The Snow Angels shovel snow for people who need help—a lot of help this past winter. The Good Neighbours are nominated for all sorts of reasons. Each of the 2011 award winners undoubtedly does a few dozen neighbourly things that were not mentioned on the application. Last night we heard about the dedicated staff of a neighbourhood grocery store, a committee that refurbished a playground, a community league that started a special program for low income children, a community garden founder, a helpful handyman, safety patrollers, party planners, a generous jack-of-all-trades, and people who make their neighbourhoods feel like friendly caring places.
When it was time to celebrate my own closest good neighbour, the host read a short paragraph to the assembled crowd. Among other things, the host said, “His nominator Lorna Thomas noted not just what David does for his neighbourhood but how
he does it. He goes about things quietly and diligently, getting the job done, getting people involved and simply making Riverdale the best it can be.” She did, of course mention a few of the things he does. He’s been Community League secretary, planning committee co-chair, and facilitator of multiple processes, some controversial, some dull-but-necessary. He sells League memberships and makes connections while he collects. He organizes teams and plans parties.
Life quickly returned to normal for the Ward 6 Good Neighbour after last night’s celebration drew to a close. He drove me to choir practice, did the grocery shopping and walked the dog.
“Good choice, Wendy,” I said to myself, turning to face the sleeping guy in the last few seconds before the dawning of today. “You sure do know how to pick a close neighbour.”

AUDREY STECHYNSKY, I AM GOING TO MISS YOU

You have taught me a lot about hope, Audrey. On the subject of WAITING FOR SOMETHING BIG you blogged “I used to think that life was about events. I have been waiting to write on my Blog until something BIG happened. What I am beginning to realize is that
life is about small moments. If the moments give me energy, I usually classify them as hopeful. Small moments can make a hopeful week or day.”
I often heard you say this in the 16 years that have passed since I met you. You said it in so many different ways. In Part 1 of This Thing Called Hope, the film you helped us make at the Hope Foundation, you said that hope could sometimes just be a cup of hot chocolate. Other times you would say, “I think I’ll come to the Hope Foundation and have lunch. I need some hope.”
You will be remembered for your indomitable spirit, for your published articles on the role of hope in career counselling, for your professionalism, for your I-can-do-it approach to disability, for the cure party you gave in 2004 to celebrate the successful conclusion of a round of cancer treatment.
But in addition to all the big contributions you made, I will treasure the memory of all the little things you said about hope.“ You wrote, Hope and health go hand in hand and every day you walked the talk and worked to prove that it was true. You walked the talk, and in doing so, you proved that to me, over and over again. Audrey Stechynsky, I am going to miss you!

A FAMILY TRANSFORMS A TRAIN AT RUSH HOUR

Travelling together, they paid me no heed.
Two little girls, is it aunty and uncle?
Adults and children in opposite seats
Not minding who got on at University.

X’s and O’s and signs and words,
Merriment, chatter, no shushing, no scolding!
“Daddy, what station will we get off at?”
“Mommy, I’ve counted 7 more stops!”

“Four more stops Daddy!”
My time to leave. It’s Churchil.
And yet I would linger, reluctant to go.
I might sit down and ride to the end of the line to savour this unexpected delight.

Would the office be cheerier if every commuter
Were granted the privilege of riding unnoticed
For ten joyful minutes of X’s and O’s
Arm’s length from a happy family?

2 HOPEFUL STORIES ABOUT LIFE BEYOND ADDICTION

What can bring on hopelessness more quickly than the experience of trying to help someone who has an addiction? Says Harold, a man with firsthand knowledge of how it feels, ”Because of the nature of addictions I can become hopeless. A lot of people in my world have been through the process many times. In a sense, they know what they need to do. It is extremely frustrating to see them not do it.”

Are there powerful stories that can keep us hoping when the situation appears to be beyond repair? For Harold, and myself, and all the others who need to hear hopeful stories WHEN their hope is threatened by addictions, I recommend two books:

Playing With Fire, The Highs And Lows of Theo Fleury by Theo Fleury, and

When All You Have Is Hope by Frank O’Dea

What do Theo Fleury and Frank O’dea have in common? Plenty, it seems. Both had have highly successful careers. Fleury is a hockey star. O’Dea is the co-founder of Second Cup, the coffee chain that claims to have begun our transition to the life of buying good coffee at coffee shops. Both felt distant from their parents in childhood. Both were sexually molested as teen-agers. Both were beset by addictions. Both sank to a very low low. Both reached out for the love and support of generous, patient people. Both found a life beyond addiction and both have something to say about hope.
Beyond their similarities lie their differences. Each has his own story. Fleury had his addiction and his career success at the same time. O’Dea had to come in off the streets of Toronto before he could embark on a career. Fleury’s drinking lasted much longer than O’Dea’s.
There are differences in the way things were reconciled for each of them. In later life, Fleury asked for and received an apology from his parents. O’Dea’s mother said on her deathbed that she would never forgive him for the hurt he had caused his family.
Both books are implicitly hopeful though there is not much direct mention of hope in either. That said, each of these remarkable men has a hope gem to offer us. Fleury says: “It is important for me to share my experiences in order to create strength and hope for others. No matter how far down you go, it is never too late to
come back.” O’Dea says, “When you wallow in remorse over yesterday, or quake in fear about tomorrow, then you lose hope.”
I believe the world has many people who, like Fleury and O’Dea, have gone forward into a life governed by forces other than addiction. It is hard to find them because we don’t hear much about them. We hear about these two, not because they are doing well, but because they are famous for other things. Using that fame to command our attention, they are able to share with us their addiction experience and triumph. For this we must thank them because we need hopeful stories.
And, by the way, they both have a few more things in common. How do these men carry themselves toward a hopeful future? Both of them reach out to loved-ones and cherished friends, and both work hard to support charities.

hope, end of life, and a musical memory

As so often happens, the lines between my work and my other life and converging this week. I’m reading about hope in the context of palliative care, and learning to play the theme music from On Golden Pond
My thoughts turn to an article called Hope in palliative care: an integrative review and then they stray back to the music.
The authors of the article, Kylme et al, observe two over-arching themes in the literature that documents patients’ experience of hope in the palliative context. These themes are: living with hope, and hoping for something.
As for the theme music from On Golden Pond, well, I started learning that from my piano teacher, Linda Borty, on Saturday mornings one spring, back in the 90’s. I loved it from the very first note. On linda’s grand piano the low notes were as mellow as a sleepy afternoon at the beach. Alas, I’m still learning it.
I would most certainly have finished learning that music had Linda not suddenly become ill. The prognosis was poor, but Linda was absolutely determined to be well again. Unable to do everything she wanted to do, she made some compromises. Through it all, she steadfastly insisted on living with hope.
“I’m planning a big dinner and dance in June for all our friends and family,” she said. ”We’ll be putting together the old rock band that used to play in the 60’s. We’ll stop lessons for a while to give me more time for that project.”
And so it was that hope abided as the spring melted into summer. May blossoms flowered. In June we ate the dinner. We danced the dances. Summer gave way to autumn but not to the resumption of our lessons.
One Saturday morning we went to Linda’s house—just for a visit. Her husband helped her make it down the stairs to the kitchen. He served coffee.
Linda said, ”I’ve been awfully tired lately. But I’m hoping to have more energy soon. Let’s set the date for our next lesson. That way we’ll know we’ll be having it.”
So we set the date. Three weeks hence. Linda’s funeral had already happened before that day arrived.
Whenever I am called upon to talk about hope in the context of palliative care, I feel the pressure to say that hope keeps people alive. This, in a limited way, I believe to be true. But, like so many other things, it is both true and not true at the same time. If hope alone could keep people alive forever, then Linda would certainly be with us today, and I would long ago have finished learning to play the theme from On Golden Pond. For Linda knew all the best hope strategies. Plan things to look forward to. Immerse yourself in new and fascinating projects. Keep in touch with friends. Follow medical advice. She did the best she could on all fronts.
If hope, in the end, can only do its work when it gets cooperation from the body, then surely it owes us no apology. It can still be thanked for the work it does. And I, in gratitude to Linda, am at last getting around to learning the rest of that song.

BEYOND THE ORDINARY HOPE OF TERRY FOX

Thirty years after he ran his Marathon of Hope THE HOPE LADY read Terry fox His Story by Leslie Scrivener. Thirty years, you say? Here we have a man who explicitly named an event with hope in the title, an event that went viral and raised 400 million dollars so far. Here we have a man with a disability who’s a hope hero to billions of people. Thirty years went by before THE HOPE LADY took the time to read a book about him? You have to wonder about it even if you make allowances for the fact that THE HOPE LADY didn’t start her explicit work with hope until 1995. She had, after all, been a counsellor keenly interested in disability issues long before Terry’s 1980 run. What then, are we to make of her neglect of this iconic Canadian hope hero?
I suppose she was a bit cynical, a bit jaded, a little bit bored by the whole affair. Few icons were as little in need of one more fan. Few stories were as well known. You didn’t have to make an effort to know a little about Terry fox. Thirty years after his death his name was still a household word. In a world of abundant unexplored stories, that story didn’t seem like a story that needed reading. THE HOPE LADY REMEMBERED the mind-numbingly dull second-by-second media coverage of the rumours and truths, indistinguishable from one another, that passed for news in the last days of his life. That was enough Terry Fox to last her for 30 years.
That said, it was probably inevitable that THE HOPE LADY would get around to being interested. It would take an army of bean counters to count the number of counselling clients and audience members who have mentioned his name and told her part of his story when she asked them who comes to mind when they think of hope. He’s the perfect hope symbol after all, with the perfect hope story. a person with a disability who does something extraordinary, meets tragedy and leaves a legacy of generosity and inspiration. Hope stories just don’t get any better than that. So, with nothing better to do on an airplane bound for Toronto, she sighed with resignation, dug earphones out of her bag, and powered up the audio book player. Better late than never, THE HOPE LADY would make the time to read about this hope hero.
The time invested offered greater rewards than she had expected. To her delight, the stereotyped story that had for so long lulled her into apathy was soon embellished by the facts. With a journalist’s acumen, Leslie scrivener had set up the story by addressing a question THE HOPE LADY had never thought to ask: What was Terry Fox like before he got cancer? BEYOND ALL THE HOPEFUL THINGS FOX DID, IT WAS THIS ANGLE THAT MADE IT WORTH THE READ.
To put it mildly, Terry Fox was not your average teen-age Canadian Joe. In a sentence, he was highly focussed, single-minded, goal-directed and bent on achievement. Given his personality, there’s no telling what a healthier Terry might have done. What we know is what he did given the challenge that was presented. Acting in character, under attack by a devastating disease, he conceived a larger-than-life project, defied the wishes of his family, expected more of others than they had originally intended to give and justified the whole thing by ignoring medical advice. So utterly outrageous was the idea that The Canadian Cancer Society failed utterly to plan for its consequences. Things reached crisis proportions when the organization found itself unable to muster enough work hours to count the money that began to pour in. after that, all sensible bets were off. Nobody knew what to expect. The Terry Fox Foundation Reports that more than 400 million dollars has been raised for cancer research by people whose inspiration came from the name of Terry Fox.
There’s a hope lesson that lies beyond the stereotypical Terry Fox narrative. There is a cue that can help us understand why some of the things we commonly say to people with disabilities miss their mark. We assume a pattern, denial, despair, anger, struggle, acceptance. On that foundation rests a common model of rehabilitation, complete with assumptions about what must be happening—spending too much time in denial, refusing to accept, etc. These ideas often make sense. That’s why we repeat them.
But here’s something else to think about. Most disabilities are given to ordinary people. Give a disability to an ordinary person, and you’ll get an ordinary response, denial, despair, anger, struggle, acceptance, achievement if you’re lucky. Give a disability to an utterly extraordinary person and nothing you say to frame that person’s behaviour in terms of the normal response to a disability will make any sense at all. And lately, with that in mind, in an utterly unpredictable turn of events, THE HOPE LADY is sometimes heard telling the Terry Fox story.

CONGRATULATIONS LIU XIAOBO

Congratulations to you, Liu Xiaobo, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. You won it for suggesting that people should have the right to choose their leaders. A simple concept, really. One that is easily taken for granted by those who have the right to choose. As I understand it, your leaders are saying that there is no need for you to choose. You ought to trust them more.
Here in Edmonton we are in the midst of a civic election campaign. It is almost impossible for us to understand what it would mean to live in a country where you could be thrown in jail for 11 years for supporting the idea of making choices on a ballot. Here in Edmonton, they beg us to vote. We tire of hearing political rhetoric. We grumble that there’s nobody we want to vote for. Sometimes we don’t even vote. Can you imagine that?
Yesterday I voted in our upcoming civic election. I cast my vote in the advance poll (note to all candidates who plan to interrupt my dinner by having your machines call me before the election, it’s too late.) I voted privately and independently. As I pushed the final button to roll my ballot out of the voting machine, I thought of you, Liu Xiaobo. I wondered what you’d say if you knew how far we in Edmonton have gone to ensure a private and independent vote.
My private and independent vote was assured by a machine that read me the ballot and allowed me to choose candidates by pressing buttons. Before the ballot was confirmed, it gave me a chance to hear my votes again, a chance to be sure I’d done what I wanted to do. We’ve had this marvellous opportunity for several municipal elections. It may not seem like such a big thing to others. In fact, the country and the province have not figured out how to make it happen in their elections. If you are a blind chooser of leaders for the country or the province, somebody has to swear an oath of reliability and help you cast your vote. But when I vote for civic government in Edmonton, I cast my own vote for mayor, councillor and school trustee.
Many years ago an election official asked me if it really mattered that much. “Isn’t it just as good to have somebody you trust mark your ballot according to your instructions?”
I wondered for a moment how to answer. Providing this machine costs money. Is it money well spent? I took a deep breath and I said it mattered to me, even though I did trust the person who would mark my ballot.
I wonder how you’d answer this question, Liu Xiaobo. Would my little quest for independence seem inconsequential to you in view of the larger needs of a wider world? I’d like to ask you, if only they’d let you out of jail.
I do hope they will soon let you out of prison so that you can collect your prize. I also hope they will some day let you cast the vote of your choice in your own country. I suppose there is a cost for democracy everywhere. The cost is higher in some places.

THE HOPE LADY ADVISES PRESIDENT OBAMA

The first voice I heard when I woke up this morning belonged to one of my most famous hope heroes, Barack Obama. It was not the hopeful voice I am accustomed to hearing, not the voice that made him my hope hero. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was a sad voice. He was trying to rally the Democrats and it did not appear to be going well. You could hear the fatigue in his tone. He was chiding them, scolding them, urging them to get back to work. Senate elections are coming up and it sounded like he was feeling an urgent need for supportive followers. It’s a nasty position for a guy who needs the help of millions if he’s to convert his hopes into accomplishments.
Helplessly watching your very own hope hero suffer is a painful thing and I was feeling the pain. Even though I hadn’t brushed my hair or my teeth, even though it was 6:00 AM, not my optimal hour of best compassion, my heart went out to him. The reporter playing the clip was presenting evidence to prove that Obama is a desperate man. The speech excerpts he had chosen did appear to support that. So at that early moment, applying the twisted logic you might expect at 6:01 AM from a sleepy HOPE LADY I made a declaration. I promised to do whatever I could do to help my hope hero go forward in his hour of need. Only one question remained to be answered? Exactly what is it that a Canadian HOPE LADY can do for a President of the United States?
By the time the sun rose I was seriously considering some options. I could give money. Giving $10.00 would be relatively easy, except for the problem of exchanging the money into American currency, and the possible legal impediments that might prevent US politicians from accepting donations from Canadians. But on second thought, what use would Barack have for the equivalent of ten Canadian dollars? There might be a better option.
I considered calling an American talk show and stating my opinion on a variety of political issues. It seems like a lot of people get most of their information from talk shows these days, and most of my opinions are in line with barack’s stated hopes. This seemed plausible, until I realized that I’d have to start listening to American talk shows in order to find the one that would most likely take my call. That use of my time tempted me about as much as the idea of eating political pamphlets for a mid-morning snack. I decided to keep thinking.
Lunchtime arrived and still I had no plan of action. Assisting a US president is not as easy as you might think. But with the help of a little confidence boost and some thinking-it-through assistance from Rachel, a plan of action was at last devised. I would steer away from the thing that has so far earned me no respect—the formidable task of influencing American politics and steer toward something more familiar. I would offer my best HOPE LADY advice to Barack Obama. And here it is.
Stick with the hope stuff Barack! It served you well before, and there is no reason to believe it can’t do that again.
State your hopes for your country in the language of I hope. You’ve done it before. You can do it again. Stating hopes is a momentum builder. You could use some momentum now.
Refuse to choose between hope and reality. You don’t have to worry about losing reality. It will be there. Focus on the thing you might lose—hope.
Hang out with hopeful people—the people who give you hope. Hope is contagious. Some people are extraordinarily good at spreading it. You have shown yourself to be good at giving it, and it’s best to keep your own supply up.
Keep up your supply of hope by looking for hope in your past experience. Pay particular attention to things that turned out better than you expected, things that were possible when you thought they weren’t. Write about these things. Talk about these things. It’s easy to lose sight of them when you get really busy trying to fix absolutely everything.
And finally, try not to give too much attention to the hope-suckers, those people and events that suck out all the hope leaving you with only fear and despair. The media is already giving them more credence than they’ve earned. They’ll tell you that hope is not enough to fix everything. Who do they think they’re talking to? This is not news. Having hope is an efficiency measure. It’s just a whole lot easier to do anything worth doing when you have hope. Insist that others should offer a hope to match every hope of yours. Don’t let them off the hook until they do.
If this is not enough to make things better, I still have ten available Canadian dollars to give you. Proof positive that there is always one more option.

Gary McPherson, Audacious Hoper

Speaking of audacious hopers I really must compliment Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson on his portrayal of the late Gary McPherson No Limits On Gary McPherson’s Abilities
Much was written about Gary when he died, but Thomson gets my nod for capturing the hoping part and putting it ahead of the disability. We need audacious hopers in the world—people who expect more from themselves than others expect of them and therefore get more from themselves, people who expect more from the world at large than the world expects of itself and therefore get the world to do better than it thought it could.
While detailing his many accomplishments, Thomson describes McPherson as ”perhaps the most influential politician in Alberta who never held public office.” Still, he did run for office, and that’s more than can be said for most of us.