Holding Out Hope

But how healthy is it to focus most of one’s time and energy hoping for an unlikely outcome? How optimistic are we supposed to be, and when does that positivity become an unhealthy escape from reality?

“At the end of Abba’s life, his body began to shut down after a long, horrible fight with cancer. For the last two days before his petirah, he lay bedridden, hooked up to machines, unconscious. My mother and I sat next to his bed and wondered how we should direct our prayers.

“Should we still be davening for a refuah sheleimah? Was that even realistic considering his state? Were we supposed to ignore the doctor’s dire predictions and daven for a miracle recovery — or accept the facts and daven for my father to have a smooth departure from this world? We couldn’t figure out where to draw the line between appropriate optimism — and denial.”

It’s hard to hold out hope when a situation looks so bleak. This is especially true if the nisayon has stretched on for a long period. Sometimes, a person simply can’t muster up any more faith and decides to be “realistic” and deal with the evidence before them.