Hopelessness feels like the future has gone dim. It’s not just sadness—it’s the sense that things won’t get better, no matter what you do. Effort starts to feel pointless, like you’re pushing against something that won’t move.
It can also bring a kind of quiet numbness or resignation, where expectations shrink and you stop looking ahead. Not because you don’t want things to improve, but because you know they won't.
This image was taken right before my younger sister passed in 2020. She had been ill in a hospital in Boston, when the shut down happened. Doctors pretty much went from telling my mother we were preparing for surgery one day to the next telling my mother they couldn't do anything for her and she should bring her to either a hospice facility, where she would die alone or home. We chose home, and for three weeks I watched and helped as my mother slowing seemed to be dying alongside my sister. I have never shown this image before.
I took this image one night as my mom slept next to her in a chair she refused to leave just hours before my sister, who was heavily medicated at this point and struggling, passed.
I used my then Nikon d850 and not sure which lens, but probably 24-70mm.