What Do You Think About at the End of a Year?

What Do You Think About at the End of a Year?

“…I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown’…”

-Marie Louise Haskins

I’ll admit it: I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s Eve. I’ve always found it to be a day marked by nostalgia. I look back along the line of time remembering all that has happened in the year coming to a close and wonder, as I look the other way, what the new year holds in store.

If you’ve been around the porch since my son Alex died in August, you understand that I’m not at all hesitant to rip the last page off the 2012 calendar. But I have mixed feelings about that as well. Tomorrow I’ll be stepping into a year in which he never lived with us.

I thought we would do something different here at LFI today. What if we dropped our thoughts about the year ending here and then just went away to celebrate New Year’s Eve and meet here again next year?

It would be a closure of sorts, for 2012. What do you think?

I’ll start. For me there were also many good things in 2012. We celebrated Easter together, all four of us, and then came back together for Alex’s graduation in May. He was home with us for an entire month in the spring and we celebrated every moment of it. When he left for Bermuda we all kept in contact over the summer via FaceTime and iMessage. When Alex died in August, there was an incredible and moving show of support from family and friends who encircled us in our grief, who came.

And then there’s Life, for instance, a wonderful place where amazing people gather to talk about life, that brings me such peace and joy.

What will you remember most when you look back on 2012?

photo credit: Nathanmac87

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About The Author


I have always loved writing and community building. I’ve written a book about healing and happiness, The Happy Place, as well as a Community Building book, Sounding the Drum: Community Building in the Digital Age,both available at any Amazon store. I’ve been through life changes that I thought were the end of my world, but I’m still here. You never know what will happen next. Isn’t that what makes life interesting?