By JoEllen Collins
Awash with positive predictions for this coming year, most publications feature analyses of what we can anticipate in the coming months. As an inveterate optimist, I, too, look forward to the prospect of healthier, less-politically divisive, and more financially stable times.
A realist knows these ideals will be difficult to realize but nonetheless hopes that somehow the lessons (like patience) we have learned during this tumultuous 2020 will help us achieve part or most of these goals. These include, I believe and will work hard to achieve, a better respect for our teachers, health workers and so many other people who get us through tough times; our grocers and staffs, postal and delivery people (please, no complaints about late Christmas presents this year, especially as some families can’t afford the simplest tokens from Santa Claus).
Usually, people celebrate the promises of a new year, like being in love and having the secret that you will soon meet for a time together, the kind of anticipation that shows in a wry smile on one’s face. When the reunion occurs, one’s dreams may be realized. (It is no accident that the countdown to the New Year ends with a kiss.) This year, however, being with a loved one, whether romantic or a dear friend or family member, may be not only difficult but impossible, due to financial or health considerations.
A COVID-19 image burned into me this year has been that of people dying without a loved one present, the ultimate loneliness. When my mother lay dying at the age of 59, as devastating as that was for me, I was able to whisper in her ear that she was the best mother that I could ever wish for. Since that time, as many of you know, I have found another wonderful family in Oklahoma, with a birth mother whose existence I never experienced. I wish I could have met her before she passed, to tell her that I honor her and have lived a wonderful life, beloved by my adoptive family. Simple, in-person messages like these are what I most miss. I have some friends and family who are suffering with deadly illnesses. How I wish I could get on a plane and visit and hug.
However, just as we need to adjust to perhaps unexpected or unpleasantly different possible events, whether political, societal or personal in 2021, we can keep the kind of spirit that flourishes even when we are away from those we cherish.
I now send New Year’s cards instead of Christmas cards. This year I am including in them a passage from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:
Will you seek far off?
You surely come back at last,
In things best known to you finding the best,
or as good as the best, in folks nearest you.
Finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest,
Happiness, knowledge,
Not in another place but in this place.
`Not for another hour but this hour.
May this hour and many more fulfill your positive anticipations.