Hope. It was a word he used every day. "I hope I make the bus on time. I hope I don’t have to work late. I hope I don’t get stuck in rush hour." Little did he know how that one word would change his life forever.
The first time he saw her, she took his breath away. Her name was Hope, and she was just shy of 13. She wore a pink sundress, yellow sandals and a bright purple hat; her bald head peeking out underneath. The mismatch of colors brought a smile to his face, for he assumed that each item had been carefully selected by her that morning.
She smiled shyly when he looked at her and pulled the small spiral-bound notebook that had been tucked under her arm tightly across her chest. Most children her age carried something with them when they entered the hospital, usually some sort of toy or stuffed animal, but he had never seen a child with a notebook before. She held it tighter and closer than her mother's hand, and when he looked at it quizzically, she pulled it even tighter against her.
He had seen hundreds, if not thousands of these little girls before but none had struck a chord with him like she did. He could still remember the day the nurse had delivered him the chart; he always did in cases such as hers. He knew that it in his line of work it was not possible to save every child that came across his desk, and the few children that he did manage to save were worth the pain caused by those that he couldn’t. However, the ones that caused the most pain to him were those like Hope; the ones that were out of options.
Hope had spent the past couple of years with a barrage of doctors and nurses attempting to quell cancer that was threatening to take her life. All the previous doctors had given her parents no hope for a cure, and they had desperately come to him for a final opinion.
He had studied her chart 10 times during the week that followed to reach a different conclusion, but it was not to be. He now had the difficult task of confirming their worst fears. Their journey was nearing its end.
All the tests had been taken, procedures completed, possible avenues explored, and now there were no options left. They arrived at his door full of hope, and now he was preparing to crush any dreams of a future. Quietly, he ushered them into his office and closed the door. The moment he opened his mouth to speak, the little girl began to scribble in her notebook. The entire time he spent delivering the details of Hope’s health to her parents, her hand never stopped moving, and her eyes never left the page in front of her.
When he had finished, he asked if they had any questions. The little girl raised her hand in the air as if asking a question in school. When all eyes were upon her, she lowered her hand and asked, "I was just wondering if you had seen all the sunshine in this room." As he looked at her confused, she slowly tore the page from her notebook and handed it across the big desk to him.
His eyes widened with surprise as he took in what lay before him on the page. While he had been delivering his grim news, she had been sketching his office as seen through her childlike eyes. The imperfections that had been transferred to her drawing made everything even more beautiful, and he felt as if he had never really seen his office before this day. Through the eyes of the child in front of him, the things he saw daily, he was suddenly able to see in a completely different light than before.
He saw himself seated at the desk, the sunlight from the small window on the wall reflected in his eyes and glasses. He saw the shadow cast from her mother's hair onto her shoulders and the glint from the diamond in her wedding band as she clasped her husband's hands in hers. Her father was shown with his arm around his wife attempting to control the emotion that threatened to overcome him. Hope had even included herself in the drawing, and he smiled as his eyes swept over her version of herself.
When he finally tore his eyes from the page in front of him, he could see the pride in her parents’ eyes. Her father smiled and looked at his daughter and whispered, “Now you see why we’ve tried so hard to keep her.” A silent tear rolled down her mother’s cheek as she thanked him for taking the time to look over her file, and with that, they were gone. As the door closed behind them, the doctor felt that a piece of his heart had been taken with them. It was now held tightly in Hope’s spiral-bound notebook never to be returned except in the form of the memory she had created for him of her.
Long after they had left, he sat studying the sketch, wondering why he had never noticed this view of his life before. How could he see something every day without really understanding the beauty that was being presented to him?
After that day, time passed quickly for him. As the days turned into weeks, Hope was admitted more and more frequently to the hospital. Each time he saw her, she was a little sicker and a little paler, and her stays lasted a little longer. However, no matter how badly she felt, she was always smiling, and when a new nurse or doctor would enter her room, she would not allow them to leave her sight until she presented them with a completed picture from her ever-present notebook.
He had seen grown men reduced to tears at the sight of her gift, and adults and children alike could not help but smile in her presence. Finally, he asked her about the drawings.
"Why do you spend so much time making these for strangers? Aren't there other things you would rather spend your time doing?" he asked. “Wouldn’t you rather spend your time playing or spending time with your family rather than making drawings for complete strangers?”
She smiled at him as he asked her these questions, and when she spoke, she appeared much wiser than her age would suggest. "I had a teacher who wanted me to start a diary, but I never really could keep one going for very long. But I love to draw so instead of a diary, I capture my life in my drawings. I want my family to have something from me when I’m gone. That way, they can see that I had a good life and that I was able to see all the beautiful things in this world. My drawings are a piece of me and keep me alive even if I'm not here."
He left the hospital that night feeling tired; tired of life, tired of work, tired all the way to his bones. And yet, as he sat in his car in the parking garage, he knew there was a young girl three floors above his head living out the last few days of her life with a smile on her face. To him, none of it seemed fair, and he spent the more significant portion of the night thinking about all the injustices in the world.
When the sun began to peek through his curtains at the first sign at dawn, he reluctantly got dressed and returned to the hospital to start his rounds. Slowly, he began the tedious task of reviewing charts and vital signs, visiting patients and consulting with nurses, and before he knew it, he had suddenly slipped back into his role of a caring doctor. When he reached Hope’s room, he quietly knocked on the door before entering. Although he tried to put a smile on his face, the color of her skin was capable of quickly removing it. And still, she was able to smile.
“You look really sad today, doctor. Why aren’t you smiling?”
It was a moment before he could answer her, “I’m just a bit tired today, Hope. How are you feeling? Where are your parents?”
“I’ve been better, but it’s OK. I made mom and dad go get something to eat, so they should be in the cafeteria. You know if you’re sad because of children like me you shouldn’t be.”
This time he couldn’t answer her at all because the only thing he could do was stare back at her.
She smiled weakly and said, “You may not be able to fix me, but you do make me feel better. It’s good to know that there is at least one doctor that still cares, even when all the rest have given up on me.”
Not knowing how to respond, he checked the machines surrounding her, looked at her chart and told her to get some rest. However, that night, he couldn't keep Hope off his mind. He was still confused as to how she could have such a positive outlook when everything around her appeared so bleak. He also wanted to know what she hoped to accomplish with her drawings and decided to quiz her further in the morning. However, when he arrived at her room the next morning, he found an empty bed and a nurse cleaning the room. When the nurse looked at him, he knew that Hope had gone from this world and that his questions would forever remain unanswered.
The service was attended by doctors, nurses, teachers, friends and family. Many beautiful things were said in remembrance of Hope, but the one thing that seemed the most important was that every person present held a picture. As each person gave her parents the photos, he finally understood. These simple drawings, made by a 13-year-old girl, were little rays of sunshine for the people she had met and loved.
Not a day went by that Hope didn’t find sunshine around her, even in the bleakest of situations. It was a quality that had touched those around her and brought great pride and love to her parents.
He now realized that even the most insignificant moments in life were important and beautiful and that even the bad times presented the same amount of exquisite beauty that the good times did, and he knew that he would never use the word hope again without thinking of this little girl.