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Hope, having hope means that you are clinging to reality - by M.S.

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Hope


'N' Level student-inmate from institution TM1

Consolation Prize


Hope, having hope means that you are clinging to reality. To hope is to wish or have a desire to do well or accomplish something in life. A life filled with hope is a life full of faith and confidence. Like life, it also has its ups and downs. Sometimes people tend to put too much hope on themselves or others and this might disappoint them. I wouldn’t know what it feels like, until I had a taste of my own medicine.


School’s over and according to the weather forecast, the sun’s going to be up until evening, defying gravity. I do my normal routine, walk on the asphalt facing the zephyr except that today, it isn’t a normal day for me. Actually, it was until my phone rang. The whole family is gathered at the hospital. How could I forget, today is the big day. My younger sister, Eve, is getting her liver transplant. From me. How lucky I could get. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I do not want to help her but if I do, there’s a ninety-five percent chance that I won’t make it.


One more time I hear the word hope, I swear I’ll burst. It’s easier said than done, it isn’t my aunt or uncles who’s gonna be at the surgery table. I’ve been avoiding my family for quite some time now, it’s not that I hate them or something. It’s just that, I’m done being the guinea pig or the sole protector for my sister. I kept getting pricked everywhere and those nurses kept taking weird things from my body and transferring it to my sister. Everytime I do this, I miss school, band practice or get sick. Eve? Well she gets to be the star, mom and dad pick favourites now. Even the nurses.


Eve was diagnosed with Acute-Polymetic-Leukemia, APL, since she was ten. So every now and then, I gave her platelets when her count was low, bone marrow, granulocytes and a million more things. I don't have the time to figure out what it is. If it wasn’t for her, I won’t be where I’m headed now, the hospital. When Eve was eleven, she had a remission and it was so bad that she almost died. Where was I? Good question. Avoiding my family. Not wanting to be a test subject. What I didn’t know was that she almost died. If I knew, I would have given them what she needed. I would give her half of my heart for god’s sake. Thankfully a donor with the same genes was found. I could have lost my sister, this made me question her.


I told her how I felt - being used and stuff. It was her reply that stunned me. It ripped a hole in my heart. She said “I know I can’t force you or anybody in this world for a part of their bone marrow, granulocytes or a liver. All I gotta do is have faith, have hope and a belief. It’s how I got this far. Hope, it will keep you alive. And for three years, I have been hoping for this disease to go away but it just won’t. I know you don't want to do this anymore, so have faith in me? Just hope that I will recover sooner or later.” Both on the verge of tears, it was when I hugged her that her tears flowed down my shoulders.


So here I am, at the hospital, hoping and believing that my kidney would save Eve, and would free her from this prison. I used to wish that this would end but now I believe that this is the end. With faith, everything is under control. You just gotta believe, I believe that Eve would recover after this, I would hold on to this hope. Just like how Eve did, for five years. Hoping and believing.

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