Why review a year many want to forget

We are seeing a lot of “year in review” stories now as writers, news media, and the entertainment industry try to sum up the past year.

We are also hearing a lot of comments about why 2020 was a terrible year and how we might be better off to just forget about looking back.

There’s no doubt COVID and a divisive election made 2020 seem like the worst year in our lives.

But ask any family member who has been around long enough, and they might offer some alternative bad years.

Take 1968 for example. There were the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the violent protests at the Chicago Democratic National Convention, and the ever worsening story of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

We get annual memories around December 7th of what the end of 1941 was like in America. In the closing days of that year, the nation was reeling from the Pearl Harbor attack, the President had declared war on Japan, and men were enlisting by the thousands.

There’s no doubt many families feared the worst as that year came to a close.

Anyone around when the stock market crashed in October 1929 would find out what a rough year or a string of bad years might be like.

My parents were born in the early 1930s, and from hearing their stories of growing up in the shadow of the Great Depression, I knew they endured true impoverishment.

This concern over where the next paycheck might come from influenced their lives, and the lives of the next generation.

Even in what could arguably be described as terrible years, there was still optimism. Both my parents were born in the early 1930s, so I expect that while their respective families worried about tough times, there must have been a sense of hope that better days might be around the corner.

The World War II years were trying, but as an allied front, people knew that we had to win in order to save democracy and enjoy freedom.
In 1968 with assassinations, violence in the streets, and Vietnam, we had Earthrise.

Earthrise was the name given to the photograph from Apollo 8. It’s that “bright blue marble” photograph taken by the crew as the spacecraft emerged from the dark side of the moon.

Looking back on the earth, the photo became symbolic with hope and optimism.

Times will improve. What COVID took from all of us may be partially restored by the vaccine, human immunity, and safer protocols.

While politics may continue to divide and separate, we will give our new government leaders a little time to try to make a difference.
We can still be looking for a few rays of sunshine. We must have hope.