Endings and beginnings

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans --John Lennon

I've never really understood the appeal of New Year's Eve. Tomorrow is, after all, merely another day. Hell, January 1 wasn't always the first day of the year! The calendar used to start in April--which, when you think about it, is a much more relevant time for a beginning. But those who refused to follow the New Year's migration to January 1 were dubbed 'April Fools'.

No, I've never understood the appeal of the New Year...until this year. Two thousand and five was my own personal annus horribilus, a year I'm glad to see flushed down the drain. Tomorrow is another day...thank God.

In no particular order...

This past year dawned with us fully expecting to welcome a couple of children into our home by, well, tonight. Talk about a grand new beginning, both for us and for them. We had worked hard to make it happen, keeping children foremost in our minds with every action over the past three years or so. We examined ourselves and each other, then threw our lives wide open to outside scrutiny. After progressing so far along the path to adoption--we had made it to the verge of the selection stage--we learned on April 18th that we had progressed in vain...that we were not fit to be parents.
This assessment flies in the face of pretty much everything we've heard, before or since. I can't think that everybody we've talked to since--our families, our close friends, our bare acquaintances--has simply been polite, that all the fury and exasperation expressed on our behalf was pretense.
Only one person has dared to tell us a reason Family and Children's Services might have found as they did. My wife's brother told us, very cautiously, that we were so close a couple that he couldn't see where children would fit into our lives. He mentioned this several months before our social worker came to essentially the same conclusion. The better part of a year passed before we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, they were right.
None of which lessened the shock and bitter pain we felt, of course.

In 2006, we intend to take our first baby steps (you'll pardon the expression) away from the model we had long held up for our lives. We'll travel; we'll renovate; we'll grow more comfortable in our future as DINKs.

The year 2005 also saw a beloved family member beset with serious health concerns that have forced a change in her plans this season and likely beyond. Our thoughts and prayers are with her as we wish her a year free of pain and suffering.

Both my wife and I have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous demands (many of them self-imposed) at our jobs. It sometimes leads us to question just why it is we care so much. In 2006, be it resolved that we shall do a better job of taking each day as it comes, for 'sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'.

On Wednesday, December 28th, Eva's grandfather passed away very suddenly, at his breakfast table. It was a massive heart attack that felled him; nothing he hadn't suffered several times before. A man of uncommon strength, he had always recovered from each attack to resume his activities gardening, woodworking, and welcoming the love of a large family. He had outlived every doctor's prognosis, until this week.
John Heersink was the embodiment of quiet determination. The house he built stands as a large monument to his physical gifts; his family stands ever strong as a greater monument to his gifts of spirit. Eva and her grandfather were very close. She had visited him at home five days before he passed away. I was at work at the time. I wish now that I had not been, that I had accompanied my wife to Embro to see her grandpa and grandma.

Today, at the close of the year, we attended Grandpa Heersink's funeral. It was, as all such occasions are, a time of great sorrow and emotion, most of all when his wife of 59 years came to the front of the packed room and recounted how she'd met him in 1946 and many details of their ensuing life together. Her own strength and presence of mind today was palpable. She recognized the minister who officiated as the same one who had married us. Think about that a second: could you recognize the reverend at a wedding you attended over five years ago? On any day, let alone a day when you were grieving the recent loss of your lifemate?
It was a difficult day for us, to wind up a difficult year. We're hoping for better in 2006, for us and for all.

Happy New Year, everyone.