A Rejuvenative New Year

It has been a bit difficult for me to receive happy new year wishes over the last few days. More so I have rankled slightly every time someone adds something about how glad I must be for 2008 to have ended and that ahead in 2009 lies good things. Let me be clear, I know that each and everyone who says this does so with the absolute best intention and sincerity. The simple act of reaching out to me remains one of the most comforting things and I relish all such contact.

No doubt, 2008 was a roller coaster ride the likes of which I doubt many people ever see let alone live. Over the past 12 months I became a divorcee, engaged, remarried, and a widower. I also became an expectant father, only to bury my son with in my new wife's arms. On a more pedestrian level, I moved into a new apartment and changed jobs. I am not sure there are any other life events or stress causes that I could have experienced. Given the way the year ended it is easy to see why one would assume I am glad to see the calendar change. However, for me 2008 remains the undisputed BEST ten and half months of my life. Because it ended with the absolute worst month and half does not negate the majority of it. Nor can I let it.

The other part of the new year messages that I've been getting has been a hope that 2009 brings better times, peace, and happiness. Again a good and well meaning sentiment, but one that rings a bit hollow in my ears at times. As much as I appreciate the support intended in it, all I can think about is that the change of the calendar, much like any amount of grieving and progress through it, will never result in my having her or my son back again. It is, therefore, so very difficult at this point to imagine how happiness will come merely with a new year. Perhaps the pain and sadness will begin to subside some and I will even have good moments, but happiness? No. That is not something I can conceivably see on my 2009 horizon. Just as the life I knew is no longer and needs to be made anew, so too do I need to reestablish and rediscover what happiness means.

So what do I hope for in the new year? That it be a rejunetive one or more precisely that it continues the healing process. It is the best I feel I can look forward to. I recognize that I'm at the beginning of a long, long journey that I never imagined I would be embarking. However, just as I reflect back on the invisible hand that helped bring Karen and I together after nearly two decades, so is there forces beyond our comprehension that provide guidance during times of such overwhelming pain. Indeed it might be at just such times that it is most pronounced.

I hope that my comments here will in no way dissuade people from providing the messages of support that have helped me to this point. Despite the difficulties in hearing "happy new year" and other such words of affection, I remain very moved by them all. My only point of this was to let you know how I am feeling in as open and honest a way as possible.

So to you all I wish you a happy new year and a rejuvenative one for me.


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I wanted to finish by passing along a song lyric that has been running through my mind quite a bit over the last few weeks. It sums up much of the feeling I've been having in the wake of Karen's and James' deaths. From Coldplay's "Viva La Vida," which roughly translates to "live the life":

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand