I have never enjoyed New Year’s Eve, even when I was young. Somewhere in the midst of all the hype and frenzy at the stroke of 12, my heart would feel unsettled and sad. I couldn’t explain it; it just seemed like the fervor was too contrived.
This year I asked my kids not to call me at midnight and sent them my dutiful “Happy New Year” wishes early in the evening. Then I promptly asked my husband to find an old rerun on a TV channel that was devoid of the New Year’s Eve grand finale countdown.
My state of mind was already fragile, and the sounds of the holiday cheer would only sink me further down an empty hole of emotional uncertainty. You see, the specter of death was looming in my family.
Three weeks earlier, while undergoing a routine heart procedure, my mother suffered a massive heart attack. For nearly 15 minutes, her brain was deprived of oxygen. And so at the start of this New Year 2009, I lay restless until the first light of dawn, praying for the Lord to take my mother home.
Some of my siblings traveled to Florida to be with Mom through this final ordeal, and they sorrowfully sat by her side watching—and praying—as her body flailed, flinched, and fought. Her vital signs remained strong, but tragically there was no sign of brain activity. Her once-vibrant eyes were lifeless.
The three-week crisis was a painful trial for the entire family. When the phone rang in the early morning hours of Jan. 6, the news of her passing came as a relief. Her suffering was over; she was finally released and homeward-bound.
It had only been three years since I lost my oldest son, and the wound reopened rather quickly as the all-too-familiar duties of preparing for a funeral enveloped me with the reality that someone important in my life was once again gone. So while there is yet time, I humbly suggest a few belated New Year’s resolutions:
• Take time for the living. If you can find the time to call on members of the deceased’s family to pay your respects, you can find the time to drop in and visit when that person is still alive.
• Likewise, send flowers and make dinners today. Don’t wait until someone dies before you send flowers. And if you would consider sending a meal to the family after a loss, think about a person or family you care about and make them a dinner now. Your generosity will brighten everybody’s day, and you will get to enjoy his or her delight and affection.
• Reconcile immediately with the one who hurt you. Don’t allow another day to go by with anger and bitterness in your heart. Offer the gift of forgiveness, and say you are sorry (and mean it).
• Make that call. Pick up the phone and catch up with a loved one before you are faced with the fact you will never hear that voice again.
• Eulogize people while they live. Those wonderful words full of love, gratitude, pride, and appreciation should be shared before it is too late for them to know how much they meant to you.
As families grow larger, farther apart, and more distant, it can become difficult to maintain those ties. Old friends can become old memories, lost to the demands of daily life. But if I have learned anything, it is the value of serving the living and preserving those precious relationships—because life will be interrupted by death.
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