The clock chimes and suddenly it is 2018. 2018! Two years away from 2020! The clock chimes.
Many of us are struggling with health issues and losses in our families. We want to leave difficult times behind and step into something all brand new. But the chime of the clock means nothing more than stepping from one day to the next. I vote that we make that step worth something.
On Neff Road, I learned to always think of others. I sit here writing feeling as ill as the rest of my family. (Sweet Emma gave us all something for Christmas.) As I sit here trying to recover, I think of all the times my parents struggled going into a new year. Yet, they had hope. A new year brought a miracle drug to my sister with rheumatic fever. New years brought grandbabies into the family. New years were a time of hope for better crops. There was much to leave behind. Hope was that none of it would flow past that chime of the clock. Yet sometimes it did.
A clock chimes and in New York’s Time Square a ball drops. In neighborhoods, fireworks are shot off and pans banged. Often there is a kiss for the new year and a bottle of champagne. But we only go from one day to the next. What differences will there be in that step into the new year?
Well, we are the difference. In our families, in our neighborhoods, in our world. To me, the clock chimes a call for all of us to do what we can to make the new year different and better. A time to leave your mark be it ever so small or ever so large. Indeed it is a call for action.
2018 is upon us. I sit here feeling lousy and not at all excited about banging a pan. In fact, I would really prefer no one bang a pan. I write this on Sunday, New Year’s Eve. Right now I pray for a stuffless nose and a new box of kleenex. However, this time of isolation has opened my mind to new ideas and new hopes for this upcoming year. You are my hope for the future. Happy New Year, dear friends. Happy new adventures. The clock chimes.
