Embers of Hope

Zane stared out the window of his small studio apartment, the remnants of a life filled with pain and loss swirling in his thoughts like the autumn leaves dancing outside. Each leaf fell like a memory, a reminder of the past that he couldn’t seem to escape. At 30, he felt like a ghost wandering through a world that had never quite accepted him.

It all started when he was just fifteen. The day he ran away from home was etched in his mind, a vivid flash of his mother’s rage—her voice, a sharp blade that cut through the air; her hands, throwing rocks not only at him, but at his spirit. Zane remembered walking along the roadside, his bike by his side, feeling both liberated and terrified in the middle of the night. Life as he knew it was over, but a classmate named Jake had picked him up, offering him a ride home. In that moment, Zane felt a flicker of hope.

Yet, hope was fleeting. The world had a cruel sense of timing. In 2005, only a few months after Zane’s long-time girlfriend, Layla, had to leave because her student visa expired, tragedy struck again. An electrical fault ignited a fire in his apartment, consuming everything he owned. His Great Grandmother's engagement ring, a family heirloom gone forever. His father's denim jacket from the 70s was his most loved possession - gone. His heart broke again, not just for the possessions lost but for the love that had been extinguished by geographical boundaries. Not only was there distance to get in the way; she was Middle Eastern, and Zane’s grandmother was against their love and made it known she didn't think he should continue the relationship with Layla. This led Zane to question himself and his family's ideals on racism. 

Then there was his father. After the fire, Zane’s dad thought he had lost Zane in the flames, and in a way, he had. Their relationship became distant, strained by grief and the new woman in his father’s life, Tori. In 2007, Dad married again, moving sixteen hours away shortly after. The chasm between them grew, and Zane felt as if he was fading into the background of his father’s life, a forgotten page in a book that was still being written.

In 2013, Zane’s mother, plagued by mental illness, succumbed to her demons. After receiving a call from one of his mother's church friends that she'd missed some of the events she committed to, he called 311 and provided the address he was given (Mom didn't tell him her address, she told him she'd "find him if she needed to"). It was a little over 2 hours when he received a call back that his mother had collapsed and died in the kitchen, too consumed by her paranoia to reach out for help. The news shattered whatever remnants of hope he had left. Six months before she died, she had rewritten her will, leaving everything to the Christian Science church, a community that had never been able to understand the depth of her pain. "Just know the truth about it" was the mantra he'd always heard.  Zane found himself battling the church just to cover her final expenses, feeling abandoned not just by her, but by the very world that should have nurtured him.

Now, Zane stood at the precipice of despair, his father in hospice care, slipping away from him. Though Zane tried to be there for him, Tori barred the door, refusing to let him visit. “No drama,” Dad had said weakly, his voice breaking Zane’s heart anew. Zane wanted to scream, to fight, but he couldn’t bring himself to make things harder for his father in his last days.

In the quiet of his apartment, Zane wrestled with the question that loomed over him like a dark cloud: Why should he continue on? Why should he care about a world that had brought him nothing but pain?

But as he looked out at the swirling leaves, he thought of the moments of kindness he had experienced—the warmth of Jake’s friendship, the joy of Layla’s laughter, the bonds he had forged with others who had faced their own tragedies. He remembered the resilience he had developed over the years, how every loss had carved something new into his soul, shaping him into a person who could empathize with suffering.

Zane reached for his phone, hesitating for just a moment before sending a text to his father. “I love you, Dad. I’m here for you, even if it’s from afar.” He took a deep breath, feeling the weight of his pain but also the flicker of hope. It was a small gesture, but it was one step toward healing.

In the days that followed, Zane found solace in small things—a walk in the park, a conversation with a stranger, a moment spent reflecting on the beauty of life despite its chaos. He began to write, pouring his heart into stories that mirrored his struggles, weaving together threads of pain and resilience. He wanted to make sense of it all, to honor the memory of the people he had lost by living fully.

Zane realized that he could not erase his past, nor could he change the choices of those who had hurt him. But he could choose how to move forward. He could choose to embrace the love he had known, to let it inspire him to be better, to be stronger.

As he continued to write, Zane found a flicker of light in the darkness, a whisper of hope that reminded him that even in the depths of despair, life was still worth living. And maybe, just maybe, he could become the person he had always wanted to be—a beacon of hope for others who felt lost, just as he once had.