Hi Friend: for some reason, I feel like I am imagining that 2020 is already behind us.

Last year, I opened with a brief reflection on our blessings and losses and the beginning of the New Year. As we say goodbye to an eventful and challenging year,

the beginning of 2021 is a time of new aspirations and renewed enthusiasm.

In 2020, the pandemic tested the limits of health, economic, … or political systems across the world. Individually, we were all stretched to our limits in all life facets – as parents, spouses, family, professionals, etc. Thanks to the new vaccines, we are making our slow progression towards population immunity and building a new normal. Even as the introduction of new coronavirus vaccines offers hope for the future, the pandemic will continue to take a toll on the world’s citizens’ health and livelihoods for a good while.

2020 – Heart Of A Giant Boys

2020 has been particularly crushing for Black people and families – be it the death tolls, economic stress, unemployment, or academics. For non-Black people, especially, it has been a year of reckonings with the Black Lives Matter movement’s maturation. The gruesome broad day-light murder of George Floyd (RIP) by police officers in May triggered Worldwide protests and demands for change with an end to racism and white supremacy. We are hoping that the change in government in the USA would lead to systemic and sustainable changes.

2020 was a challenging year. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee 2021 will be better. Rightfully, we were eager to bid the struggles and sadness of the past year good riddance and ready for the new year during which our fortunes would take a turn for the better. Thankfully, things on Earth are not rational at all. That makes me optimistic. I am hopeful that 2021 would be joyous. But what is in store in the new year? I do not know.

I hope that 2020 be a requiem. A requiem for the lives that have been senselessly taken and all the deaths that could have been avoided – with more compassion and humanity, better preparation and crisis management, and better leadership/decision making.

2021 should be about possibilities and the possibility of change, not just in the outside world but also in myself. I also need to change. I need to continue to get better and more resilient.

Let’s make a toast –

• • • May the best of our past be the worst of our future.
    • May we remain positive and testing negative.
    • May 2021 be a better year, healthier, more peaceful, and just.

Note:

• I will be sharing more personal and health-related notes about 2020 and my upcoming activities in the next posts. I will tell you about how our family/bubble made it through the year – We have had some highs, lows, lost many dear ones, caught and shed the virus, and more…
• Also, Coming Milestone!! – Monday 11 Jan – The fourth anniversary of my LVAD implant surgery.