Hope

I need this today.  Maybe you do too.

Around 1987 I was still battling my first major bout of depression. It lasted off and on for quite a few years. For some reason I was still capable of reading during this time. I read mostly horror type fiction. One book I read was called Twilight Eyes by Dean Koontz.  There was a paragraph in that book that jumped out at me.  It not only jumped out at me, it took hold of me and never really let me go.  For this I will be forever grateful to Mr. Koontz.

It was Koontz’ description of hope.  It was exactly what I needed to read at that time.  This paragraph was so important to me that I wrote it down in every journal I had ever possessed since first reading it. In the last 30 years, I have reread this paragraph again and again. It has saved me more than once. I still wonder how something so deep could be found in a horror novel.  I recently unpacked a box full of old junk and came across an old notebook.  30 years after first reading Twilight Eyes, I was once again confronted by this paragraph.  I am a firm believer that you get what you need.  Not only is this paragraph fantastic, the whole book is great.  I have read it numerous times.  It is one of my “I need to get away right now books”. I do not possess a copy of the book Twilight Eyes right now but I have managed to save this one paragraph. So even if you are not into horror novels, at least take the time to read this one paragraph. You’ll be glad you did.

I have never read a better description of hope….  I had a paperback version originally and this paragraph can be found on page 183 of chapter 13.  May you find it as helpful/hopeful as I have for over 30 years. (damn I feel old).  It remains the perfect description of hope to me. And YES, I am obsessive. And YES, I think obsessive thought Tuesday will become obsessive thought Thursday.

As I said when I began this story, hope is a constant companion in this life. It is the one thing that neither cruel nature, God, nor other men can wrench from us.  Health, wealth, parents, beloved brothers and sisters, children, friends, the past, the future —- all can be stolen from us as easily as an unguarded purse.  But our greatest treasure, hope, remains. It is a sturdy little motor within, purring, ticking, driving us on when reason would suggest surrender.  It is both the most pathetic and noblest thing about us, the most absurd and the most admirable quality we possess,  for as long as we have hope, we have the capacity for love, for caring, for decency. —- Dean Koontz

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