This is a story about hope and a 40-something carpenter named Tom, who has hair the color of roasted carrots and is never without a smile and his Big Gulp of diet Mountain Dew. He owns next to nothing but considers himself wealthy. He only has a high-school education but is one of the wisest people I’ve ever met.

We sat down in a park one warm August day and he told me about hope and how it held him up during the darkest times of his life.

“A few months before I started a new construction job, I noticed a spot on my back.  It was a funky freckle, and I wanted it off, because it was going to bother me if I was working. So, I went to the dermatologist to have it removed, and she told me they’d send it to a pathologist to check it out.

“Then I got a call to come back in immediately, and in one hour it went from just a follow up visit to being told I’m having a massive surgery to remove all my lymph nodes. She said ‘After that you’re going to see an oncologist.  There’s going to be radiation, chemotherapy, palliative care.  What do you do for a living?  You’re a carpenter?  Oh. Well, you’re not going to be banging nails anymore.  You’re going on disability because this is very serious.’  And the last thing she said was, ‘But there’s hope.’

“I’ve been through six surgeries to remove the cancer, two rounds of chemo, a clinical trial that had to be cancelled, innumerable PET scans, MRIs, CT scans, just about every test imaginable out there.  And I’ve learned so much.  Even though I started losing hope so many times, I’ve seen God through it all — appearing at just the right time.

“I was going through a clinical trial and I was hurting bad.  It was supposed to go on for a year and I was only three weeks in and I was so sick. I said, ‘I’m done. I don’t want this clinical trial anymore.’  I’m sitting in the reception area at the U of M Cancer Center, and the pediatric infusion unit was right at the end of the hall and this lady came walking out with her son who was about maybe six or seven.  And it hit me:  I had lived a life.  And this little kid might not even be able to get a driver’s license, might not be able to experience his first love.  That was God at work saying, ‘You get your ass in there and you do this because you might be helping somebody else.”  And I did it.  I got through it.  I got that hope back that I had lost.

“Another time I was in the hospital undergoing chemo, and I was violently ill and ready to give up. I told the oncologist: ‘I can’t take this.  This is only the third day.  I got two more days to go through this and then I got to come back a week later and go through it again.’ And he said to me, ‘Why don’t you just get through today?’ I knew he was right. As he left the room, he said, ‘You should get up and walk.’

“I felt hope again. I was walking down the hallway and happened to look into one of the rooms and there’s one of those little beds you see in a maternity ward with a IVs going into it.  And this little hand reached out.  I lost my self-pity right there.  I pulled hope back in, put God back in control and said, ‘I only have to do this today.’

“And not only was I walking around, I went to visit to other people in that ward and talked to them.  Some of them didn’t want to talk.  I could understand.  But it really helped me to get out of myself and say, ‘Look, man, there’s hope for you.  I know it’s hard.  Look at me.  I look like death, but I got hope and I’m doing good.  I feel like crap but I’m doing all right because I only got today.’

“Here I am today. I still have cancer.  It’s not active.  I’m powerless over whether that comes back or not.  But I’m not powerless over how I respond to it.

“It makes me feel good to help other people.  I do scroll-saw work and made a Christmas ornament that says “hope.”  I usually carry some on me – I keep some in my car and hand them out to people who look like they’re having a bad day. And to see the change on their face, to see the change in them, is amazing. It’s like, “Wow, thank you.”

When we were finished talking, Tom went to his car and brought back one of the wooden hope ornaments and gave it to me, so I’d remember, too.

This is a season of celebration, but it’s also stressful and tough for many people. Whatever you may be going through, hang on to hope. Hug it. Cling to it. Lash yourself to it if you have to. But don’t ever let go.

Have a hopeful, peaceful holiday, my friends.