"Hope From The Monsters Under The Bed" by Espiritu

Hope From The Monsters Under The Bed Yna Dominique T. Espiritu Victory Christian International School

My younger brother is 5 years old which means he basically runs on nothing but his own imagination. It’s fascinating, actually, just observing him from afar, role-playing with his action figures. He’s at that age wherein he can get away with talking to himself.

We’ve all gone through this phase, and gotten away with it as well, not only because it’s cute but also because the adults around us find that it’s one of ways we can get a grasp of who we really are. Imagination helps us define our identity. Perhaps the downside of active imagination, this I’ve realized now as a teenager, is that we not only create images in our minds of wonderful and majestic ideas, but our thoughts may at times transform into our worst fears. This is the case for my brother as he often creates mental images of terrible monsters and witches. In him, I see the first glimpses of where we human beings begin to fear our own minds. For my brother, this experience is among the first evidences of which he has lost hope. I realize this when he tells me how these stories have made their way into his dreams. If you’re reading this and you’re much older than my brother, his situation seems petty and easy to overcome. I brought it up, just in case any of you have asked yourselves when we’ve began to lose hope in the first place. It may be hard to believe at first, but don’t we all still have monsters and witches sucking even the remnants of hope in us? The only difference is, they’ve grown up.

The truth is, we’re all hopeless in our own ways. Even those of us who are living more comfortable lives feel hopeless. It’s human nature to always lack or feel like we’re

lacking. Still, there are some of us who do have hope. Which welcomes questions like: where does hope come from, can you share some hope, please give me some hope? Oh, the desperation in our voices, the hunger in our eyes when we look for hope in fragments of television news, from next door neighbors, and even from online articles. But the truth is that hope isn’t a wandering substance nor is it anything like an airborne disease. That is not how hope is celebrated and passed on, and it certainly isn’t something that blossoms from out of the blue. Hope is shared when we show people how much hope we’ve sustained.

I can’t help but think about tragedies and how it seems unfair to be making this proposal when hopeless situations are happening every second. They transpire in places where disaster has made a home out of. There aren’t enough resources for affected people to create hope for themselves. And yet, despite these, miracles happen, and I’ve seen hope come out of what we all see as nothing. I see it in the way the children who have lost their homes and families to the typhoons have picked up sticks and find delight and comfort in playing with them. Hope has painted priceless smiles on their faces. I see it in the way the kids in Iraq have taken soccer balls and put up makeshift goals to make their own joyous little football league in the midst of war. They show us how to play games when life throws us curve balls. And in all of these scenarios, these people, these children, never needed to scavenge. They’ve merely created. People who have been through everything, people who are left with nothing, can somehow give us everything we need: hope. Without even noticing it, hope has been shared. If these people, who have nothing, have created hope, then what is stopping us from making some for ourselves? To cure even the pettiest of our hopeless situations?

(Children play in one of the first Child-Friendly Spaces opened after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines. Š UNICEF/PFPG2013P-0320/Kent Page)

(Syrian refugee children start a game of soccer at the Domiz camp in Iraq. Š UNICEF/UKLA2013-02433/Sharron Lovell)

Most of us are fortunate enough to live without the bounds of such tragedies. But I see that same hope in the way my mother has helped my brother create hope for himself. We left off with the monsters and witches but his story is not yet over, and I am privileged to have witnessed hope blossom from his childish situation. My mother, who knows most of my brother’s nightmares, tucks him in every night. Along with her prayers, she promises my brother that the blanket he sleeps with, is an anti-monster shield, and that there are superpowers in the kiss she plants on his forehead. These promises smoothen the nervous furrow of his eyebrow and everything seems to be all right. He sleeps, almost every night, with a safe and hopeful smile on his face. Even

gestures as tiny as my mother’s are capable of uplifting the way we see hope being created.

I don’t mean to say that just like the monsters, the tragedies that leave us hopeless are not real. They are very much real and they happen when we least expect them. I’ve figured that if this generation is creative enough to dream and even scare ourselves with our own thoughts, we are most certainly capable of noticing the little bits and pieces in our everyday lives that will help us build the hope we need. People around us will see us pull hope from the slivers of perseverance we have and, in turn, be hopeful as well.

It does take more than doing, however. National Geographic released a video of how two blind sisters were given an opportunity to undergo eye surgery. The doctor who performed the procedures had something striking to say about his experience. He said, “You need more of your heart than your hand.” And I believe that to be true. More than our actions, our heart to create hope inspires others.

I’m not writing to give you hope. Instead, I urge you to go make some of your own.

Photo Credits: http://www.unicefusa.org/stories/mission/protect/education/child-friendlyschools/child-friendly-spaces-offer-fun-safety-and