Memories sustain us until 2021

No pithy wisdom could cover 2020

Ialmost told my editor I want a bye week this time. The last thing I want to do is try to come up with something clever to say to cap a year filled with death, destruction and unrest, especially during a week when many families are separated for the holidays — either temporarily to control the virus or permanently by the loss of a loved one. Not exactly something to make merry or light.

Folks lost jobs and homes, companies closed, kids missed school years, proper weddings and funerals couldn’t be held. It was all bad enough living through it once; what pithy spin could possibly make it worth living through again? No, thanks. I’d rather just sit here with Trapper John and finish binging the third season of “Yellowstone” or looking at Baby Yoda memes instead of typing trite commentary that weighs down with poetic waxing or glosses over with bumper sticker cliches.

I thought of asking for a blank column to be published with a meaningful word or quote printed in the center, for an artistic effect that could drive a message home. Plus, it wouldn’t take a lot of effort from me during vacation, or so I thought. Turns out, one word is harder to come up with than 500.

I could always fall on the New Year’s resolution sword and list all the things I want to do better in the coming year. Truth is, that would take more than a margin of paper to write, and like most people, I’m doing the best I know how as it is. A list probably won’t change that much.

In the past, I’ve written about going home for the holidays and of the adventures on Uncle Ronnie’s farm, but we didn’t gather this Christmas, and looks as though there won’t be another opportunity to do so. Uncle Ronnie is selling the farm. When he talked of downsizing and moving a while back, I thought that’s all it was — just talk. My heart hurts at the idea of not roaming that land with him.

So, I don’t have any answers, and I don’t know what the new year holds. Never have. And that’s OK. This year wasn’t the best in history, and it probably wasn’t the worst either. But it was a year of our lives. With wins and losses, every year changes us no matter how hard we try not to let it. If we’re smart, we’ll carry the good with both hands into 2021 and leave the baggage of 2020 on the curb.

Perhaps the writing this week should best be left to Grammy. A woman who grew up as a sharecropper, picked cotton and survived three husbands, she’s a tough woman with a soft way about her. On Christmas, she texted me how it was a slow, cold day with no traditional dinner or house full of family, but that she can “live on happy memories for a while.”

May we all do the same, and may the new year hold opportunities to create many more.