"WHERE are you going?" I asked my seatmate while riding in a bus bound for
Davao.  My reason for asking: the thirty-something lady seemed to be
fretting.  I wanted her to be relaxed while the vehicle is in motion.

She looked at me and replied, "Davao City."  Then, she looked at the window
as if she was keeping away from talking with me.  But the intruder - that's
me! - wasn't satisfied.  "Are you alright?"

The lady stared at me.  "No, I'm not alright," she said.  "My mother is in
the hospital right now.  She's in serious condition, but we are hoping that
she would survive this.  We hope so."

Remember the Cascades song?  It goes this way: "The last leaf clings to the
bough, just one leaf that's all there is now.  And my last hope is with
that lonely, lonely leaf, with the last leaf that clings to the bough."

"From the withered tree, a flower blooms," states a Zen saying.  Well, that
talks about hope.  A Scottish proverb pointed out: "Were it not for hope
the heart would break."

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "We judge a man's wisdom by his hope."  Such
was the case of Dr. Thomas Starzl.  As a surgery resident in medical
school, he was very much interested in transplants.  In 1958, he sewed new
livers in dogs whose livers had been removed.  Unfortunately, all dogs died
within two days of the operation.

But his early experiments did not deter him to continue what he had
started.  He was hoping that one of these days, he would succeed.  In 1959,
he found a way to stabilize circulation and the dogs lived for a week after
transplant.  This is a good start, he may have told himself.

In March 1963, Dr. Starzl performed the first human liver transplant but
his patient bled to death.  That failure, and a hepatitis epidemic that
spread through artificial kidney and transplant centers around the globe
during the early 1960s, forced his liver program to be abandoned.

But the termination was not completely though.  In 1968, Dr. Starzl and
others reported results of new transplant trials to the American Surgical
Association.  All seven children involved in the study had survived
transplants, although four died within six months - an encouraging but not
stellar result.  By 1975, only two liver programs were left in the world.

Then in May of 1981, Dr. Starzl and his team had success - 19 or 22
patients lived for long periods!

Lesson of the story: Dr. Starzl was criticized, even vilified, by the
medical establishment for attempting transplantation - but he persevered.
He was hoping all against hope that he will succeed - and he did!  Today,
liver transplantations are routinely performed in hospitals around the
world.  "He who does not hope to win has already lost," said Jose Joaquin
Olmedo.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. puts it: "We must accept finite disappointment,
but we must never lose infinite hope."  John F. Kennedy has the same idea:
"We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes."  To
which Pearl S. Buck adds, "We must have hope or starve to death."

Great men and women from the past have forwarded some ideas about hope.  To
Aristotle, "Hope is a waking dream."  Francis Bacon considers hope as "a
good breakfast," but "a bad supper."  Emil Brunner quipped: "What oxygen is
to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life."

St. Clement wrote: "If you do not hope, you will not find out what is
beyond your hopes."  Norman Cousins contends: "The human body experiences a
powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. That is why the
patient's hopes are the physician's secret weapon. They are the hidden
ingredients in any prescription."

Barbara Kingsolver argues: "The very least you can do in your life is to
figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that
hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof." 

In life, I equate hope with try.  A person will never know the true meaning
of success until he tries something different in his life.  "It is common
sense to take a method and try it," Franklin Delano Roosevelt once
declared.  If it fails, admit it frankly.  But above all, try something."

There was this neighbor who kept telling me every time I passed his house:
"I have read your article.  Keep it up!" Then, one day, during a deep
conversation with him in a birthday party, he admitted that he wanted to
write, too.  "I really wanted to be like you," he said.

"Why don't you try writing?"  I inquired.  In the past, I knew that he
wrote for his school paper.  "I am sure you can do it.  Let me read what
you write and I may give some pointers and how to improve it."

His eyes brighten as if he could not believe what he heard.  He did.
Today, he is writing for some local and national publications.  Last
December, I received a card from him: "Thanks for being my mentor."

As I read his card, the words of Ted W. Engstrom, author of 'The Pursuit of
Excellence,' came into my mind: "Starting today, you can begin to enjoy
using and developing your (God-given) gifts.  For a start, you may want to
risk something small - like a toe rather than a neck."

What does he mean? "For example, if you've always wanted to write, then
write something, a short article, a poem, an account of your vacation.
Write it as if it were going to be published; then submit it somewhere.  If
you're a photographer, gather your best pictures and submit them as entries
in a contest.  If you think you're a tennis player or golfer, enter some
tournaments and see how you do.  You may win the top prize, but think how
much you'll learn and experience just by trying."

But when you try something, be sure to give your very best.  That way, you
won't say later on, "I should have done it better."  In other words, don't
blow your chance.  And, of course, hope for the best!

Alexander Pope said it all: "Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man
never is, but always to be blest."

ooOoo