05 January 2012

2012

                                  image: http://www.bunny-comic.com/1503.html




Every year I search an appropriate image of Father Time, gather my thoughts in a blog, and offer a hopefully positive thought for the New Year.

I'm late.

I know, and have no apologies to offer for the tardiness.

I have never been happier to kiss a year goodbye.

2011 was pivotal -- in all the directions I prefer not to travel, and I am glad to bid it adieu.

This year's image is the Father Time I faced for all of 2011; a horrible, miserable, jackass of a year.

But I am grateful for my survival.

Many years I am also grateful for the survival of the people closest to me. But this bastard snatched some of my closest, and carried them away from me forever.

I can only hope 2012 is a less grim and less brutal. I hope to score more points in the battle; and stand bloody perhaps, but unbowed when the final bell rings.

For now, I am satisfied to be alive. Held up by one phrase that entered my consciousness from the pen of my dear angel Elizabeth years ago, and has hopefully attached itself permanently to a spot near the front of my brain permanently.

She told me (and the rest of yahoo 360) that she "knows why the angels bow." Her words came as the title and theme of her cybersharing the gut-wrenching and heartwarming experience of watching her grandson kick and fight his way past the darkness to take his place as the then-newest member of her family here on earth. His was a journey fraught with danger. After a fierce battle he'd arrived to a baptism of his mother's tears, still swaddled in the blood of the struggle.

I haven't checked in with her for awhile, but I trust he is well on his way to a place as one of our strongest warriors. I need him to be, for at the moment, he is my silent and invisible mentor.

Which brings me to the important part. My blessing for 2012.

My blessing this year is simple.

I wish for your survival.

We may thrive, we may succeed, we may even propel to greatness this year. From behind my eyes, that would all be extra credit.

I want you and I to both be alive when the clock next strikes Happy New Year.

The rest is gravy. If I have ever loved you; know that I still do. If we were ever friends, know that we still are. And if we are foes; know that I only wish to live to fight again--you at your strongest, me at my best.

Peace,

--Stew.





Stew's Number