Yes, 2020 has been a hard year and that is putting it mildly. A year full of anxiety, stress and uncertainity. A year full of pain for so many families, a year when so many of our fellow Americans did not have to die because of COVID, but they did. Who would have guessed back in January that we would spend the rest of the year carrying a dark cloud over our heads because that is exactly how it has felt.
2020 has upended life as we knew it, disrupting our schools, our jobs and the way we shop for groceries. Who would have thought we would experience a shortage of: toilet paper, canning jars and lids, bread flour and so many other essentials. In 2020 we embraced hand sanitizers so much so that we also experienced a shortage. And face masks became a must wear much like in Asian countries.
Our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations did not include most of our families. My Christmas tree acquired two new ornaments to mark this incredible year.
This COVID pandemic has disrupted our life in such a way that I don’t recall our spring season. Our neighborhood is always so beautiful during that time but I did not see it. I missed seeing the flowers blooming in our front yards and our beautiful cherry trees in the area.
Summertime was spent mostly indoors or tending to the pandemic gardening, a whole new experience for many of us while seeds were also in shortage.
I also missed the fall season. I totally missed the peak of the colors in our neighborhood. Even the Monarch butterfly migration through our area was disrupted with only a couple of them seen this year. Last year (2019) I got to see many of them coming through my backyard.
And despite of it all, I feel we are the lucky ones because we are still here without catching the COVID virus and hoping we never do. Still Several people in our community have caught it and have conquered it, some better than others but they are all doing well.
Still our neighborhood had a few celebrations “COVID style”, keeping our distance and wearing face masks. We celebrated the 4th of July with a Patriotic Car parade. We also celebrated Halloween with our Pumpkin GLOW display that was absolutely wonderful. And we celebrated Christmas with a Christmas Lights Car parade that even Santa would not miss.
While there is light at the end of the tunnel because vaccines have been approved, we are still in the tunnel and it is a long and dark one. It is with joy that I welcome 2021 even when at least the first half will still be under pandemic conditions.
