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Craig Heller:
What hope means to me.
When Wayne asked me to speak about hope
I was, of course, honored – at first. Then I started to wonder what
had I got myself into? I’m no great orator and what did I know about
hope? I’m the privileged son of a white, middle class family, the tail
end of the baby boomers. Hope is what you had when you asked a girl on
a date; unless her name was Charity.
What did I know about hope?
I never had to hope. Growing up as the
very late fourth son, my depression-era parents had worked hard and
achieved the American Dream. I just had to ask. “Dad, can I have the
car keys” “Mom, I need some gas money”.
As befitting the children of immigrants,
my parents adopted all the usual North American cultural norms. We had
a fake silver Christmas tree, albeit with a Star of David on top, and
the bounty underneath was excessive. I always got what I wanted.
Except for that time when I was three and my mother left me screaming in
the toy aisle of Thrifty Drug Store. I seem to remember that all I got
that time was a good swat on the behind.
What did I know about hope?
I knew nothing of hope. I knew nothing
of life. I lacked so much self-awareness that I floated through high
school, not realizing that I was lost. By the time I was thrown out of
the University of Minnesota for playing bridge instead of attending
class (it was too cold to walk across campus anyway) I was beginning to
realize that all was not right with my world but I certainly had no idea
how to find my way, I had no idea how to hope.
What did I know about hope?
I returned to the university because it
was better than the grocery store I was working in. I wandered in and
out of a marriage and in and out of a graduate program. I left both
because I didn’t know what I wanted. And then I made that great error
that so many of us commit; I returned to the womb. I moved back in with
my parents. In the case of my classically dysfunctional family, nothing
could be more detrimental to my life journey but, it seemed like a good
idea at the time. I spent the next two years working in a warehouse
searching for someone, for something, for anything. I can’t tell you
what motivated me to move on from that part of my life, but I knew I had
to flee. I had grabbed on to one of the few things that I knew made me
truly happy (and, dare I say, hopeful): working with students. I
arranged interviews at a number of graduate schools east of the
Mississippi, climbed in my Toyota pickup truck and hit the road; Leonard
Cohen on the tape deck and Jack Kerouac on the seat beside me. Three
and a half weeks crossing America’s highways. Minnesota to Wisconsin,
across the upper peninsula of Michigan (absolute heaven in October by
the way), over the top of Lakes Erie and Ontario, down through New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Tennessee and back through
Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. These journeys always leave one with a
bittersweet melancholy when you first return to your beginnings, but I
finally knew where I needed to be – Penn State!
I was starting to think that I knew
something about hope.
And then I met Ingrid. I should say,
then I fell in love with Ingrid because the moment I touched her, I was
lost again – but, as those of you who know her well are familiar with, I
was lost in the most delightful, maddening, complex maze one can
imagine. Ingrid and I met on a Friday in March of 1990 and a week later
we were living together. She liked that my apartment was clean and I
didn’t own a television set; I liked her passionate nature and how her
eyes catch fire when she’s feeling righteous. Our first argument was
over a bowl of cereal and the ride began. Eighteen years later, after
many adventures, including two children, I was still strapped in my seat
holding on for dear, dear life. But now I knew about hope, love teaches
you about hope, children teach you about hope, and tragedy teaches you
about hope.
On February 5, 2008 my life changed. I
received a phone call from the emergency room at Lee Memorial Hospital.
Ingrid had been in a car accident. A speeding dump truck had run a red
light and crushed Ingrid in her car. She was in a coma and we had no
idea the extent of her brain damage. But I knew hope…
The last ten and half months have been
difficult, insane, confusing but filled with little bright lights of
hope. Every time Ingrid accomplishes something that she couldn’t do the
day before -- every time her eyes flash and I see the woman I love --
every time a friend takes my hand and stands with me -- every time my
children laugh -- I know hope.
And every time that I come here, to All
Faiths, to my friends, I know hope. Because I have learned that hope is
neither expectation nor optimism, nor is it anticipation or wishing.
Hope is community, hope is knowing that, no matter what happens, you
will be not be judged, you will not be reprimanded or pitied, hope is
knowing that you are not alone.
I’d like to close with a poem by Rilke
that my dearest friend shared with me last night. It was ironic that
she should send me this while I was writing what I wanted to say today,
but then, maybe not so ironic…
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the
night.
These are words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and
terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand
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