The Small Song of Hope

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity

It asked a crumb - of me.

For a few weeks now I have been in the storm where it was very hard to hear that little bird, “Hope.”  Things seemed so terribly foreboding for Big and her health.  Every sign has been pointing us towards a diagnosis I don’t want.  And each step we take, seemed a step closer.

But today I heard the very faint chirp of “Hope” perched in my heart.  Big’s nodes seem a slight bit smaller.  They are still there and they are still bigger than they should be, but I do believe they are slightly smaller. 

And as I hear that small song of “Hope” springing up, honestly, I try to silence it.  Because I have read that with a cancer diagnosis sometimes lymph nodes “wax and wane” in size.  Smaller nodes does not mean we are out of the woods. And I know that even if they are smaller, SOMETHING is going on with her health and we need to get to the bottom of it.

But no matter how hard I try to silent that little bird of “Hope.” it insists on singing.

That song scares me.  I don’t want to get my hope up only to be crushed when we get results from the biopsy scheduled for Monday.  Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”  I don’t want that sick heart when I get the results.  I would rather not hope at all.

But that little chirp is there…. And so we keep waiting….