The year has flown by, and I am aware often now how swift life’s journey is. As December concludes another chapter, it is clear that the mark between the pages read and the pages that remain is decidedly nearer the back cover!
Even so, this recent chapter has been a pleasant one. I read bittersweet in Webster’s and find that, at least in modern usage, it does not connote the proper sentiment, but it is still the best word I know for the sense of life one’s own maturity ought bring to us. The poet John Gower coined bittersweet in 1393 according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but, interestingly, the word remained almost nonexistent in usage before 1900 and took off in the 1970s. We use it around seven times as often now as when I was a child (and my family briefly lived on a street by that name).
Those of us who prefer dark chocolate to cotton candy understand how a bittersweet year can be remembered with fondness.
The candles who burned down and went out gave much of the year its bite (or bitterness, in the old sense). A man who during my adolescent years and young adulthood provided me with a much-needed male role model and father figure passed away at the venerable age of 90. Death is inevitable, however, whereas living a long life worthy of imitation and veneration as he did is not.
Likewise and although my own health remains good, many of those I love or those close to them continue with chronic illnesses and have developed new conditions. I hope that their grace has helped make me a wiser and stronger person because, often, that is the only good I can draw from what they are going through.
Nick and Catherine both continue to prosper. He should finish his doctorate by summer and is planning his next move. She and I have moved back to (northwest) Knoxville, finally deciding to redo an existing house, rather than build one from scratch. We have been in the process of it since September. She also acquired a new dog, Wren, who has gone from an eight-week-old puppy, to a one-year-old monstrous, destructive beast:
Don’t let her confined-to-the truck demeanor fool you. Outside, she is sixty-plus pounds of misdirected energy, relentless curiosity, and a belief that the world is her oyster–she just has to root open its shell with that furry snout to find the pearl inside.
Catherine still works at the Vet School, and I am still at the Clarence Brown, where I received a coffee grinder for my 20th anniversary. I have been putting it to good use, but today my doctor said I need to knock off the caffeine by 10 a.m.
Coffee is a tasty if bitter beverage, appreciated most in moderation.
Merry Christmas to you and yours and have the best New Year.