2024 - The Most Difficult and The Most Amazing Year Ever
When 2024, was still fresh and new and I had no idea what the year would bring, but then, who does?
When 2024, was still fresh and new and I had no idea what the year would bring. In my journal, I wrote of my thoughts about pilgrimage, noting it involves moving either physically, mentally, or spiritually from one place to another.
Without even deeply thinking about it, I imagined a pilgrimage would involve a lots of wondering as one wanders. Pilgrimage invokes the image of one going to a new place where one hopes to learn new insights that will not leave him or her at the same place as where he or she began.
Certainly, that happened for me and for my family.
Looking back on the year, I realize that if I were to sum up the year, it would be a year of pilgrimage like no other in the span of my life. It certainly involved a lot of wondering as I wandered!
My word for 2024 was: PLACE1
I can also confidently say, that I am not in the same place physically, mentally, or spiritually as I was when I began the year.
Never has a year asked more from me when it came to understanding how quickly all the seemingly sure places in life can shift so suddenly into places where we have no idea how we will navigate the new landscapes in which we find ourselves.
Some pilgrimages begin not by choice. They begin when all we really want to do is stay put in the place in which we have finally arrived. They begin at times when we have absolutely no intentions of leaving the destination that we already fought hard to reach. We think to ourselves, “Now that I am in the place of ease and comfort, I think I stay planted here, put down some roots, and flourish. We pull out all our old projects we hope to complete, and we begin designing a schedule we think will allow us to accomplish some new goals while also building in time to just sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labors which we have already spent time and effort nurturing.
Then real life happens, and we find ourselves in places we never could have imagined.
Hospitals - Places of Horror, Hope, and Healing
First for the personal hospital visits that brought hope and healing. I personally had three medical procedures in 2024, all of which I was most grateful to have. One was planned, the others were not. They were:
a Watchman2 was implanted in my heart on January 2, so I would not have to be on blood thinners the rest of my life due to stroke risk from atrial fibrillation.
surgery to remove pre-cancer cells in my left breast in April. This was totally unexpected, and it was found because I remembered to schedule my mammogram. Ladies, remember to get those important tests done!
a heart ablation3 to calm my pesky, life disruptive incidents of AFib was done in July. Thankfully, I have had no AFib since the procedure!
In March, my husband had his left shoulder replaced. His pain is now gone in that shoulder, and he has range of motion with this new shoulder he has not had in years.
Hospitals can also be places where we confront the horror of all an illness can bring into the lives of our loved ones.
When I look back on this year, I will never forget one horror filled visit when I arrived at the emergency room where my oldest daughter had taken my second daughter for evaluation and treatment.
Daughter Amy was suffering from the both kidney and liver failure in April of this year. I had no idea how serious her condition had become before I arrived at that emergency room. When I first saw her, in that moment I knew with a certainty that could not be denied: if something did not change for her, we would lose her in a very short span of time.
In fact, I honestly wondered if there was any way possible for her to get her life back.
In that moment, I also barely dared to believe things could be reversed for the good for her. It truly was a place where I experienced sheer horror when I witnessed the way multiple organ failure was ravaging her body and mind.
We were told she would need both a new liver and a new kidney. That news rocked me back on my feet like no other news I had ever heard before when it came to the future wellbeing of one of my children.
At first we hoped for live donors, and many stepped up to see if they could qualify. During that time of searching and waiting for donors, I had the privilege to visit a place that I will forever be indebted to because of the care, concern, and love they have shown my daughter, my family, and myself as we hoped for a life-giving transplant for my daughter. That place is: the University of Colorado Transplant Anshutz Medical Center.
It is in this place where my daughter received the gift of life when she received two new organ from a deceased donor on September 21, 2024. She is ending this year with a new lease on life, and she is doing amazingly well!
Places I Visited
Early in the year, before we even realized how sick my daughter was, I traveled to Arizona to complete the final class that was required for me to earn a certificate in death and grief studies.4
I began working on this certificate in August of 2022, and was able to complete all five classes by February of 2024. At times the classes were grueling because not only was I learning new material, but I also found that each time as I entered into the experience of grieving with others involved in the coursework, I found new places of grief in my own heart I had not yet visited. I am grateful to have been able to earn this certificate, and was able to use it by helping to facilitate one grief group in my local community earlier this year.
Oh, The Places You’ll Go
“You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Never at the beginning of year, and certainly never during the time when my daughter was ill, did I think that I would end the year by visiting places I had always dreamed of visiting.
On the last day of August, when we still had no idea how things would go with Amy, when I feared she’d be on a transplant list waiting for needed organs for months, my husband insisted that he needed me to get away from all the stress and challenges of the year. I kept pushing back by telling him, “No, we can’t possibly go on some big trip right now.”
But he persisted, and he booked a trip to Europe.
In the end, it became a celebratory trip of sorts because the miracle of all miracles had happened: Amy had been given a new lease on life and was doing much better than any of us ever could have imagined.
Knowing she was doing so well, we left home on November 21, and traveled to Amsterdam where we stayed for three days. From there we embarked on a week long river boat cruise that took us on the Rhine River across Germany and into France. We ended up in Basal, Switzerland, and from there we went to Lucerne, Switzerland, where we stayed for another two days.
Our guide posed us for a photo op she said should be our Christmas card photo. I didn’t send out Christmas cards this year, but I am posting the photo here for you to see.
I even went inside of a glacier in 2024! Now, that was place I never thought I would go!
Places in My Heart
There are places in my heart that have been changed forever changed in 2024.
I learned to believe in real live miracles.
I learned to trust in the Providence of God in ways I never could have imagined.
I learned that people of prayer hold us up when we really can’t find the words to pray for ourselves because we are overwhelmed by fear, stress, and fatigue.
If I had planned for or known about all I would encounter in 2024, I never could have come up with a way to navigate it all on my own ahead of time, yet, in the end I have come to a place where I have learned the truth of these words of John O’Donohue5,
Every yesterday prepares you for today. What today brings you could not have reached you yesterday, or a hundred years ago.
I’m learning that nothing in this life is forever, and so I am slowly teaching my heart how to live in the present. I truly am learning how to let each day unfold as it will unfold.
So many things have changed in this past year, and I have not been happy about many of them. Frankly, I have been shattered by changes in the political climate of my country.
I am grieving the loss of relationships.
I am grieving the loss of our dear loyal canine companion that we lost in May.
And, I am grieving the break-up of a marriage and family of ones I hold most dear.
I head into 2025 wondering how aging will impact the lives of both my husband and myself.
In all of this, and so much more I am determined that the place I will strive to live in as we head into the future is the present, no matter what it brings. (I credit the writings of Esther De Waal for teaching me how to do this.)6
The past is past. I must let it go; the future is unknown, the only reality lives in the present.
Last year, as the year ended, I wrote how life really is a pilgrimage that leads us to so many places we never expected. As the year unfolded there was nearly a prophetic aspect to these words, but really, for all of us, life is always going to lead us to places we never expected to be.
Last year, I acknowledged that year ended in a hard place, but I also stated: But, I have been in this place, or in places similar to it, before.
I encouraged myself by reminding myself that in prior times, I have met other challenges.
Therein lies the greatest lesson and the greatest blessing of 2024:
Hitherto, with help of God, and my husband, and of my family and of my friends, we have faced and met those challenges together.
And we did again!
Thanks be to God.
I am heading into 2025 with this prayer for you and for me on my lips and in my heart:7
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.
May it be so.
Amen.
Love,
Sally
You can read more about this amazing device here: Learn about the Watchman.
You can read more about that procedure here: Learn about cardiac ablation.
from “Eternal Echoes, Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong” by John O’Donohue, p. 122.
“The White Stone - The Art of Letting Go.” by Esther De Waal, p. 37
from “Eternal Echoes, Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong” by John O’Donohue, p.97
What a year you have had! I pray that 2025 brings a less eventful year with lots of peace and rest.
Sally, I don't think I have a current email for you. You left a comment on my blog with only an address in it -- Fair View, etc. I haven't posted it yet as a comment (I can, but wasn't sure if it was a mistake. Seemed like one.) Meanwhile, a very happy New Year to you. This post is a stunner with both good and challenging but you made it! And now, onward! Let me know if I should delete the comment.