Dare to Hope

Hi Readers,

For those who have been regular readers, you must be thinking that I have left the planet since my last post so long ago.

This is not an excuse, but since going back to work this term I just haven't found the time to put into the blog due to needing to put so much time into my school work and catching up on so many things after taking 12 months leave to be with Jen.

I always thought that I'd be able to slip back into the groove with only a few bumps and hurdles, how wrong was I !!!

I hope I can get my act together next term and hit the ground running and not keep bothering the rest of my team for advice!

Which brings me to the title of this post.

Do you ever have occasions when things come to your attention or drop into your lap at just the right time? That has happened to me this year with some books that I have come across that have helped me get through the worst year of my life. You only have to look at previous posts to see which books I am talking about.

I was cleaning up our house a few days ago after having people staying here for a while after the death of Jen's mum last week, and I picked up a book that I had left in one of the other bedrooms that I had been reading earlier this year, but just didn't get finished.

I was at boarding school with the author many years ago and he was just the warmest person you could meet. Little wonder he has made such a huge impact as a coach, and now even more as an ambassador for the fight against the illness that will ultimately take him.

I hardly need to say anything about Neale Daniher to my Australian readers, but for those overseas, this is it in a nutshell.

Neale finished school and was an instant success in the AFL before being the victim of successive serious knee injuries. He made a number of comebacks, but was never the player he was. He became a coach at Melbourne and got them into a Grand Final. 

A few years ago he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and has outlived the life expectancy of someone with this disease. In this time he has worked tirelessly to raise money and awareness of this illness and inspired millions with his attitude towards approaching one's own mortality while at the same time doing his utmost to help others.

He has brought so much hope to so many people, and not just those with MND.

His approach is helping anyone facing adversity in whatever form that may be, whether it is a tiny problem or something just as big as what he is facing.

While finishing his book this week, and flipping back through some pages that really resonated with me there was so much to take in when considering what he is going through and seeing how I, or we can take something from him.

He talks about the setbacks and hardships that we face at different stages in our lives and how the severity is often connected to particular stages of life. In his own example he compares what he thought was the devastating news of a serious knee injury when he was at his peak, and how that becomes so insignificant 30 years later when he is diagnosed with a terminal illness.

He goes on to talk about how we don't really get to choose our setbacks or adversity, but our lives become defined by how we respond to them. We don't seem to have trouble dealing with all the good things that happen to us, but when the  💩💩 really hits the fan we find out who we are and what we are made of.

We learn how to cope with the bad things and to appreciate the good things a lot more.

Throughout all that he he has been going through for the past few years he has continued to be hopeful for the outlook of others facing the same reality that he has. His work for the MND Foundation will continue long after he is gone, but it will give hope for others who have just been diagnosed, or who will be diagnosed in the future. While there is no cure yet for MND, perhaps the work being done by Neale and his organisation could soon change this.

All because he dares to hope.

That was a short digression, but an essential one as I come to the reason why I chose this topic to write about.

I was watching a TV show this week, and they recounted the story of ex AFL player Paul Dear who died recently from pancreatic cancer.

Rather than wallow in self pity about his own setback, Paul and his family decided to create a documentary about his journey so that it might give some hope to others facing similar setbacks. 

The story was titled "Dare To Hope".

Just like Neale, Paul was virtually given a death sentence given the extremely low rates of survival from pancreatic cancer. It is a cancer that progresses so far before being actually diagnosed, and by then it's often too late.

While being very realistic about his own chances of survival, he always had hope. Even more to the point, his family shared the same hope.

While not wanting to spoil the story should any of you want to watch it (It's on 7Plus), let me just say that I found it incredibly sad, inspiring and heartwarming all in one.

I found the last 5 minutes so hard to watch given the circumstances of this year with my family, but something that his wife said was just so profound, and looking back, is exactly what we did without really knowing it.

They were expecting Paul to live for 9 more weeks, so anything beyond this was a bonus to celebrate. They chose not to display sadness and sorrow in the remaining time he had left, as there would be ample time to do this after his passing, should this occur.

His wife felt that she could cry all that she wanted to after his death, there was no need to do it beforehand. This enabled the whole family to work together to support Paul throughout his illness, and this shared hope no doubt helped them to support each other as well. It was all about celebrating that he was still alive.

Just as his family remained positive and upbeat despite what was facing them all, we found ourselves doing the same with Jen throughout her illness. No matter what setbacks she kept facing, she, and we always clung to the hope that these challenges could be overcome sometime. As it turned out, the challenges proved to be far too overwhelming for Jen, but at no stage did she give up hope for some sort of recovery until it was well and truly too late. Having hope was something that binded us together for the duration and also gave Jen so much purpose to keep fighting, for apart from her last few weeks there was always a slight glimmer of hope for her.

So what's the message I'm trying to get across in my usual random manner?

I have always considered myself to be someone who always tries to maintain a positive attitude through all things. It doesn't always happen, but I try to do it. I get frustrated when people complain about trivial things, especially when we put them in perspective with other things going on in our lives.

How we react and respond to trivial matters either prepares or under prepares us for the bigger things that really matter. If I let myself get upset about things like getting stuck in traffic, busting a pipe in the yard, not understanding how to administer a particular literacy assessment ( yep, that's me all over 😩) or my footy team losing, how then am I preparing myself for bigger issues that really matter?

It's like the "Is it an ant or an elephant" analogy I mentioned a few posts ago, and one which I use with the kids in my class constantly. With this approach in use, I find that they are able to deal with their own little problems themselves ( "Someone else is sitting in my chair", "My water bottle is empty", "She was staring at me" etc) so that when bigger ones occur they are more equipped to handle them.

In a way, I 'dare to hope' that the kids are developing resilient skills, and that I am in some way helping to facilitate this. In my current classroom, there are irregular power shortages and internet dropouts. Whenever this happens I always try to model a positive reaction by not worrying about it and finding an alternative. On the inside I might be feeling 🤬😡😤, but by displaying this I am doing the kids no favours, and it doesn't solve the problem anyway. Our "We don't have problems, just solutions" mantra must drive them insane at times, but hopefully it is helping them to deal with setbacks more effectively.

Now that it is a bit over 12 weeks since we lost Jen, I still wake up some days thinking "How will I get through today?"

This is when I take my perspective pill and consider my situation to that of others., and I soon snap out of it. I 'dare to hope' that each day is going to be better than the previous one, and this only encourages me to look for ways to make the day better and carry myself in a manner that Jen would be proud of.

I have a few ailments at the moment that require surgery ( all self inflicted, so there's no-one else to blame !) and while general movement is a bit of a chore right now, I'm not going to let them stop me from doing most of what I want to do. To me, they are just bits of the body that need a bit of 'cut and paste', and by adopting an attitude of "I'll get better" I find that the nuisance value of them goes away. 

Sort of 😤

Daring to hope means that by this time next year I could be in a much better physical condition, something that I am eagerly looking forward to. Others may look at me and say, "Just give up now, you're cooked", but that is even more incentive to prove them wrong.

Look, they may be right, especially at my age, but I'm not prepared to give that idea a chance as I have hope for better things no matter what.

Just wait for it to happen rather than expect it to happen.

Daring to hope for me is making plans to do so many things in the coming years that Jen and I were going to do together, but I'll now do alone. And I'm okay with that. Having these things to look forward to gives one's life purpose and something to look forward to and work towards.

So what are you daring to hope for?

Is there something in the back of your mind nagging at you saying "Come on, just have a crack" ? What's stopping You?

I know it could be financial or just too impractical due to circumstances, but why not just start small? I always wanted to start a blog, and it took me years to get my act together and get started, but here I am a few years later still fluffing about writing about stuff that probably only interests me. 

But it works for me.

Do what works for you.

If we refrain from doing or trying things just because we are concerned about how others may react or respond ( assuming it's legal of course !!) the things that give us the greatest purpose may be forever not done.

"The most secure prisons are the ones we create for ourselves" - a quote I read recently that resonated, and sums up all that I'm fanging on about. Break out from the perceptions of others and have a crack at what you dare to hope.

I know that today I have referred to some cases of people who have received the worst diagnoses, but they all continued to have hope in the darkest of situations, and that rubbed off onto others. Perhaps we can start small and build small communities of hope and positivity?

As Paul Kelly sang... "From little things, big things grow.."

Well Readers,

That's it for today, and hopefully (gee I've used that word a bit today !!) I might get a few more posts done in the next two weeks of holidays.

I'm disappointed that I haven't used more pictures, but I was determined to get my thoughts down without the distraction of finding appropriate images to match.

As always, you can leave comments down below, just hit the "Comment" tab.

Until my next post...

Cheers 😁