2020 was quite the year. One would be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t have something to say about 2020….something along the lines of F#&*%@# 2020. As is true of the new year, we all reflect on the past year and make resolutions for the new year. Many a Facebook meme has warned us to eat our black eyed peas, open all the doors at midnight on the 31st and for God sake, don’t say ‘ 2021 is my year!’. As bad as it was, it was still a gift.
As I think back on the last year I have to say that despite the difficulties, the challenges, and the ‘unprecedented’ nature of the year, for me it was a year of growth. My biggest takeaway for the year….Time is fleeting. It moves in the blink of an eye, and you always think you have more of it.
Yet at the same time… time is sometimes immeasurable, making it the best gift you can give someone.
No matter how the time passes, if I have learned nothing in this last year with my husband, children, grandchildren and mom, it is that this time, this moment is what we have. Each moment we have together is a gift; the adventurous moments, the bored moments, the happy moments, the hard moments: every one of them is a gift.
This year with my boys and immediate family has been a year of making the most of our time, and that time has gotten away from us. My babies are not babies, and our time with them is running out faster than my emotions can keep up. We have a year and a half left with both our baby boys at home before Jesse if off into the great wide world. A year after that Jake follows. Every moment, every car ride conversation, every late night discussion on the meaning of the world around us, every quiet moment across the table doing our own things…. together, are all gifts.
In February, when Don and I went on our Honeymoon…20 years after the fact… That time together was such a gift. Even more so in retrospect because shortly after returning, the world paused as Covid spread. That time we had together, basking in all of those incredible moments was such a gift to ourselves as individuals and our selves as a couple. Each day during that time, we were sad to not be sharing this gift of time with our boys and we talked about the adventures we still want to have with them.
We started a trip account to save for grand adventures and gifts of time with the boys, and and talked about where the summer would take us. Less than a month later and life Tok a turn as the global pandemic was spreading. The gifts of time that we had planned didn’t come to fruition, but we received a different sort of gift of time: the slow down and center ourselves at home with your family gift of time. That’s not to say that life stood still. We still had our summer glamp outs close to home, back yard bar-b-ques, and day trips to the lake, but there was no annual summer road trip, or vacations to Arizona to see friends and family. Spring break adventures were cancelled, Jake’s first rock concert for his birthday was postponed for a year…Despite all of this, these times were a gift.
Our holiday celebrations lacked the crowds and craziness and potlucks and parties that our large extended family brings with it, but the quiet gathering of my immediate family was a gift. Missing the stress of every weekend in December packed with one holiday activity or another was a gift. Avoiding the malls and shopping centers and buying all sorts of stuff was a gift.
As we welcomed the new year, and I traveled to be with my mom at the end of her days, time has taken a different turn. Time has been the thing I wish I could take back and the thing I wish I had more of. I always thought that when it came to my mom, there would be more time, there would be more adventures, and time wouldn’t end. I thought the gift of time was eternal. Two cross country flights in December to be with my mom, because when all is said and done, the only gift that maters now is the gift of time.
I know that this was my Mom’s last Happy New Year, and as the sister friends gathered on her back patio eating their black eyed peas, I think they too were lamenting the time they thought they had…. but at the same time, they were also celebrating the gift of the times they did have, reminiscing in memories of times gone by and those gifts of time. The evening spent together under the new year Arizona sun, that time of unity in mourning together, was a gift of time. In that moment the gratitude for the friendships and times past and reconciling how time will look moving forward, missing my mom, was a gift.
It doesn’t matter if this moment is a moment of adventure or a moment of monotony, a moment of joy or a moment of sadness, it is our moment- our gift to ourselves and our gift to others. This is a moment in time we never get back and we never know how many more moments are ahead. Sitting with my mom as she struggles for breath, knowing that she isn’t ready to give up the gift of time with her friends and family, as hard as it is, remains a gift that I am grateful to give, but more grateful to receive.
My goal moving forward is to live each moment for the gift that it is. Genie die zeit.
