A New Year We Will Not Soon Forget

I was determined to make the beginning of 2024 start off on the right foot. 2023 had been a black year in so many ways. We couldn’t possibly take any more at this point.

The annual new years eve party has been a tradition at my in-laws for many years. This year was special, as the turning of the midnight clock would mean that their golden year would be ushered in. Considering how difficult 2023 had been, we needed this night. The time to spend together as a family and celebrate the new year. We had more than enough food planned, games, music, and midnight hour decor galore! The anticipation of pulling off surprises and pulling together a themed party was just the distraction that we needed from what was really happening in our world.

It is March of 2020 and the world is shut down for this virus we now know as COVID-19. This is the beginning of what would definitively change our lives. My husband was working on an additional bachelor’s degree that would help him navigate a career change after over a decade in the golf course industry, and we transitioned to finishing his degree from home while I also worked from home. We also began to witness the first steps in the decline of his grandparents and the first phase of caregiving on our journey.

Fast forward 1 year, and my husband’s grandfather has major surgery just before his 90th birthday. That Spring, my husband would graduate with his second Bachelor’s degree, and would also begin more routine companionship and caregiving responsibilities to assist his grandparents. We would find a rhythm and routine in our lives for the next 2 years in this season.

That brings us back to the black year of 2023. The year of phone calls that would forever change our lives. First, there was the call of February 2023. My paternal grandfather was no longer on this earth and my father was on the first flight out of town. In March we would bring my paternal grandmother back to live with my parents, beginning their 24/7 caregiver responsibilities for a total bed bound individual. Then there was the phone call of July, where my maternal grandmother’s “simple procedure” turned into a nightmare that left her with only one functional kidney. The next phone call would occur in October, when my husband would call to let me know his grandfather could not walk or stand. It would take a family team approach to navigate the hospital and nursing home stays for the next 3 months.

The culmination of these events over the past 3 years had led us here. Exhausted beyond belief and desperately in need of normalcy and family celebration. We threw everything we had into making the new years party a success and normal for all of us. We decorated, we played games, we reminisced about the last year’s adventures, and we pulled off a wonderful surprise at midnight by beginning the celebrations for my in-law’s golden year while my brother-in-law was home.

For just a moment all was right in our world. 2024 would certainly have its own challenges to come, but I’m choosing to remember how the year started. With balloons, strawberry and vanilla cupcakes, and SIXTY candles.