Words don’t come easy when trying to describe the past year. Our lives have changed. For some the changes have been small, like transitioning to working from home; for others the changes have been much deeper, with an empty chair at the family table.
It is hard to find the light in such darkness. It is almost unbearable to think about. But as I look back at 2020 and search for the light in this year, I see my neighbor Ken down the street I barely spoke to last year. Now I call his dog and children by name as they play in the yard, and I know how his parents out of state are doing. I am more patient with the post office clerk, and waiting in line doesn’t seem to be so much a hassle as it is a luxury. I can call to mind the sound of my mother’s voice like never before. Coworkers have become the family we so greatly miss. I see our hometown heroes: the first responders, grocery store workers, nurses, doctors, and the others too countless to name. I see nature as a gift that we all too often forsake and pass by without notice. I notice how grateful I am for the ease of taking a breath of fresh air. I’m incredibly grateful, and even in all the darkness the light wins out.
I look back and recall the friends I’ve lost this year to the virus, cancer, depression, and to, well…life. I see the families I have met at Larkspur in the middle of a silent field where judgement, political party, race, and social status were transcended and left at the door like a pair of muddy boots. In what may be the darkest year of our lives, I think we ALL recognize the light more clearly this year than ever before.
May we bless the memory and the look for the light of: Luno Edwards, Margaret Genendlis, Nicholas Brooks, Andre Mefford, Oscar Ramirez, Carley Meade, Thelma Taylor, William Wolters, Nancy McFadden, John Post, David Dwortzan, Zelda De Wet, Clair Barry, Ellen Reiley, Lois Catanzaro, Ben Lewis, Kathleen Morgan, Robert Graves, Charlotte Bishop, Desray Zamek, Sharon Faison, Toni Saunders, Bonnie Adcock and all those beyond Larkspur who we have lost this year.
