Nocturne #17 – Hope’s Evil Brother
What is disappointment, if not a shadow that proves the existence of the light of hope? This is the story of the first, defining heartbreak that taught me disappointment. It is about a man who first saw the artist in a young boy and, upon leaving, revealed the true, painful price of belief—and how that pain turns into the fuel of creativity.
Disappointment… what a strange and cruel construct. It doesn’t exist on its own. It is hope’s evil twin, its dark reflection that only appears when the light shines brightest. Disappointment is impossible without hope. It is the price we pay for the right to believe in something.
The first, true, devasting disappointment in my life was my grandfather death. Before him, the world was an endless canvas of possibilities for me, on which I painted the future with the brightest colors. And my grandpa was the chief architect of this world. He was the one who saw in me, a small, confused boy, an unquenchable passion for art. He was the only one who understood me without words, in whose eyes my “madness” was reflected not as childish mischief, but as a gift. He was my most ardent supporter.
I remember his final, gleaming gaze. It was a gaze full of hope — hope that I would continue to paint, that his love and faith would live on in me. I too was clinging to hope — a small, childish, stubborn hope that would save my grandfather. But the hope vanished. And when he was gone, I understood for the first time what emptiness means.
It wasn’t just longing; it was the loss of a color from the world’s palette. On that day, I realized that disappointment is not an event, but a feeling—as if something in your soul has shattered forever, and you have to continue living with those shards.
Since then, this feeling has become my constant companion. It changes its form, its scale, but its essence remains the same. It appears when the melody you create never sounds the way you heard it in your head; when the words you choose for hours ultimately fail to convey what you feel.
It appears in human relationships, too.
That moment when you try to be comfortable, cheerful, to give off positive energy… You smile sincerely, but you see that smile hang in the air and return unanswered. It wilts on your face like a flower left without water. That too is disappointment—the hope for a real connection that turns out to be an illusion.
And yet, despite all this, we cannot give up on hope. It is the fuel of our existence. My grandfather’s love, his faith in me, was hope. And the disappointment that his loss brought is simply proof of how precious that hope was. After all, the depth of pain is measured by the height of love.
To this day, he remains in my heart as the ideal of humanity, kindness, and love. And every time something doesn’t work out, every time I am disappointed, I remember him—my first and greatest teacher of what it means to have something whose loss can hurt so deeply.
And perhaps, this is the artist’s path—to live on this constant edge between hope and disappointment. To feel everything much more intensely, and then to turn both that pain and that light into your art.
Grandpa, I love you! and thank you for this lesson.