Dear 2024:

Please, be gentle. Your predecessor was anything but.

Last year, honestly, was the most challenging year I have experienced.

Ever.

After 28 years of marriage, my wife passed away in May, leaving this hollow, this empty, this really missing-the-union feeling.

I find myself looking at married couples, zooming in on their wedding rings, wanting to go up to them and gently ask: “Do you know how lucky you are?”

People told me the first Christmas without my Joan would be hard. They were half right.

It was incredibly hard. I still feel somewhat lost, almost a week later.

But the support of family and friends has been unwavering and out of this world.

Herein lies the end of the bad stuff of this journalistic journey.

There’s lots to be thankful for.

They collectively lifted and carried me on their shoulders and helped me see tomorrow’s light, when darkness was my default anticipation.

I will be forever grateful.

There were other changes: I moved from the condo where Joan I lived into a building which is associated with three words I have always feared and told myself I would ever be part of, unless I absolutely had to.

Long-term care.

Well, I had no choice because of this thing called aging — and my disability, cerebral palsy, slowed me down mobility-wise — and I require more personal care.

Remember those words?

Long-term care?

They transformed into another trio of words — my new home.

I am getting some of the best personal care I’ve had in my life.

And the food? Best quiche I’ve eaten, and it reminds me so much of my dear mother’s Sunday dinners.

I’ve also reconnected with my siblings — brother Brad and sister Joan — after many years of being apart.

And there’s another plate at the family’s gathering now as The President — grandson Nick — met a beautiful young lass named Sara. And, keeping up with Batman and Robin — grandsons Christopher and Matthew — is a joyous obligation with hang-on-to-your-hat split decisions of what-the-heck-are-we-doing-now fun, our family is growing in so many ways.

I could say Joan would be so proud of everyone.

Rather, I’ll scribble Joan is looking down on them with pride.

So, 2024, please help me through the next 12 months to be the best I can be for people around me.

A new friend made a profound observation Friday when we were visiting.

“We can’t predict the future, but we can experience it,” she said.

So 2024, teach me to experience whatever lies ahead in the next dozen months, and help me drop traditional ways I’ve done things, and adapt to new ways.

Help me to be kind, generous and a little off-the-wall brother to strengthen my relationship with Joan and Brad.

Most significantly, help me learn to accept.

Help me learn not to have sad thoughts when I think of Joan, and to keep honouring her with the traditions and lessons she shared with me.

Help me to be more encouraging and grateful towards people. Patient, too.

And, 2024: it’s a dangerous world out there and I think you know that.

I ask you to keep as many people as you can safe from harm’s way.

So welcome!

Let’s get started.

Happy New Year.

camtait58@gmail.com

QOSHE - TAIT: Looking forward with thanks to a new year - Cam Tait

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TAIT: Looking forward with thanks to a new year

Cam Tait

Edmonton Sun

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02.01.2024