Illness is an introduction to the fragility and sacredness of life. With illness we learn we are not immune. Nor are those we love. We learn our sense of invulnerability is an illusion. Illness is the great equalizer. We come to understand that life and death are intimately and ultimately connected, for everyone. Illness comes with a formidable invitation to notice the sacredness of life. It is a wake up call to the preciousness, a call to notice the everyday, to be present "there" and "now," to place our lives in perspective to others and to our universe. It is a call to accept the place we have in infinity and eternity, to ask the "big" questions and enjoy the "simple" answers. To do so we must find a rightful place for the suffering, a perspective that allows room for hope.

Serious illness is a journey, a hopeful journey, with an unknown destination. In illness the dichotomies are vivid. Hope is the space between symptoms and diagnosis, between diagnosis and prognosis. It is the wrestling match between science and compassion; between body and spirit, between pain and relief. It is the dilemma between fearing to be alone and hungering for privacy. Hoping is waiting - for test results, waiting for appointments, waiting for the organism to heal and the spirit to rekindle. Hoping is walking the line between the constant probing and invasions and declaring "No more," not now.

The hope for survival is not the only hope; many days not even the overriding hope. The hope is not to be "in-valid." Hoping is knowing someone is making an effort to help, that family is never far away, that the system cares, that what happens is the best of technology and the best of humanness. Hoping is being attended by people who understand caring makes a difference, an immeasurable difference.

Hoping is being treated, not as another case of a particular disease, but as a person, by people who understand this could happen to them. It is knowing there are no secrets and being a partner on the treatment team. Hoping is being encouraged to do as much as possible for one's self. Hoping is trying again, moving against the odds, knowing everything that can be done is being done, knowing the caring will go on when the limits of science are reached.

Hoping is denying the statistics, reaching beyond the traditional, keeping open the possibility of being the exception. Hoping is listening to the unconscious, having dreams in the world of sleep and dreams in the world of consciousness, of wondering if there are miracles, of being fascinated with the little miracles, the words that heal, the memory that lets us forget. Hoping is having passion for life. Noticing life, wanting life, inching towards life, being willing to embrace life despite the risks. Hoping is recognizing death is not the enemy, never living is.

The suffering humbles us. The hoping takes us forward. We come to understand that we are among many who become ill, among many who hurt and fear, and who need, and who cannot explain the unusual experiences we come to trust, the experiences for which we have no words. There is a knowing, which accompanies suffering; a knowing that emerges from deep within us, that speaks from another dimension of life.

Angie Cenneno