Somewhere Between Hope and Despair
By: Daphne Thompson
Tags: Grief And Loss, Life Lessons, Loss

The past six years have been rough. It is hard to feel like I’m not constantly losing someone or something important to me. I keep moving forward, but it’s not always easy.

This month, it will have been six years since I lost my Dad. He had been ill for a long time from heart disease, which runs in his family. While spending a week in the hospital, I’d go by every evening to feed him his dinner. I was a daddy’s girl. His love of science encouraged me to enjoy the same thing. He came home from the hospital and died in his sleep. He’d been fully alert until the end.

Five years ago in June, I lost a job I really enjoyed. Oh, it didn’t pay much, but it was a position I had created and built from the ground up over an eight year period. I was in charge of outreach and science communication. I managed a group of college students and gave tours to thousands of people from children to senior citizens. However, one day in a group meeting I found out that the job was being eliminated. If you ever need to terminate a position, I advise you to do it in private. It was a major disappointment, and not the best feeling to learn in that manner.

When November arrives, that will mark four years since I lost my younger brother. We were very close, and I will always miss him. He should have turned 44 last week. That year, he went to the Doctor thinking he’d pulled a muscle in his side. Instead, they found an aggressive and rare liver cancer. Within a month, he was gone.

I lost my marriage three years ago. I won’t go into detail, but my two cents is don’t marry at age 21 to someone you met at 17. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

November is really not a great month for me. Along with it being the anniversary of my brother’s death, it is also that of my best friend’s passing. It will be two years that she has been gone. We had been friends since our freshman year of college. I miss her terribly. Cancer is a horrible thing.

Last year, both of my sons graduated. One finished college and left to Austin to begin his life. The other one finished high school and left home to begin college. After many years of my life focusing solely on their well-being, my nest is empty. I’m still not used to it being so quiet.

This year, I lost another job. It was a wonderful position that I really enjoyed and looked forward to every day. While it required many hours outside of the normal workday, including weekends, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. In this case, the position was eliminated due to restructuring after an acquisition.

Am I focusing only on the negative? I don’t think so. These were all major events that greatly affected me. My life changed when I lost these people. My outlook on life has changed with the loss of my work.

Of course, amongst the grief there has been happiness within these years. I am hopeful that life will improve while at the same time waiting for the other shoe to drop. My emotions are fluid, and I feel they are valid.

Maybe we all have our feelings on a sliding scale from happiness to hopelessness? Some live on one end or the other, always joyful or always in an abyss. Most of us live within this sliding scale, because life does exist somewhere between hope and despair.