Goodbye 2024

A lot of people are glad to see the back of 2024, with a feeling that 2025 can only be better. I don’t want to bring the mood down but I remember similar comments at the end of 2020; I hope this optimism is better rewarded. I had to pause to think about my own year: I can’t say it was good, but I can’t say it was the worst year I’ve lived through. Early in the year I had a health scare, which could have had a terrible outcome, but it didn’t; Neil was out of work, which is far from ideal, but we didn’t starve. And my father died.

I won’t argue that being orphaned is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone. Orphan is an emotive word, evoking images of starving waifs in rags holding begging bowls. I’m about as far from that image as the sun is from me as I type this (and I don’t just mean because it’s been distinctly sub-par in performing its summer duties so far). I’m fully dressed in warm clothes – thanks, Sun – and I’m certainly not starving. I could even lose a few kilos and not miss them. Although being orphaned is awful at any age (and you can bet I have more to say on that, but some things are better written about from the distance of time) reaching your sixties before it happens is not what I would consider a tragedy. My father was close to ninety, a good innings by any standard, especially for a man who smoked most of his life and whose idea of a healthy diet was drinking a glass of orange juice a day to balance copious amounts of cake and chocolate.

If you live at a great distance from your family there is always going to be that phone call, the one that makes you throw things in a bag and yourself onto a plane. When I got that call about my mother we had been in New Zealand only a few years and had no spare money. We both had employers and limited holidays, although both were generous in allowing us extra time away. Still, it was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. With my father I was able to drop everything easily, pay for my flight (albeit with help from my wonderful father-in-law and by dipping into my pension fund) without going into debt and, being self-employed, take however long I needed without having to worry about returning home for work.

I have three siblings, all orphaned along with me, and it was wonderful to share the load with them. Together we sorted out the accumulated detritus of a nearly fifty-year family home, exclaiming over things we’d forgotten about, discovering lost treasures and, frankly, a lot of junk. Together we shook our heads at the amount of paper Dad had saved (bank statements going back over twenty years, many still in the envelopes they were delivered in). Together we cried; together we laughed – a lot. Whilst we grieved our father (and mother, although she has been gone for nearly two decades now) we shared memories, along with a similar, somewhat dark, sense of humour. I am beyond grateful that I could pause my life for the seven weeks I spent there, time I wouldn’t have had a few years ago when I would have had to rush back to a ‘proper’ job.  

Unemployed is another emotive word, one that makes me shiver when I think how close Dad was to it a couple of times, the worry and stress it engendered in our family. Neil spent the majority of 2024 without paid work. For most that would mean struggle and sacrifice, possibly worse. For us – well, we have two homes, how can we complain? Sure, our pension savings took an unexpected hit, but we are fortunate to have those to fall back on – we know many who don’t. What Neil’s lack of work did mean was that when I had to get on a plane at short notice, he could follow me less than a week later and not have to dash home as he had to when Mum died. Having him there to support me means more than I can ever say.

2024 ended with the news on its last day that the sale of Dad’s house has fallen through. So things can only get better and 2025 should be a better year for our family. We have a new baby to look forward to, and in September Neil and I will have been married thirty years. We’ve just booked (and taken out a small mortgage to pay for) the holiday we thought we’d take for our twenty-fifth anniversary. We all know what happened in 2020 that meant we had to change plans. Hopefully there will be no major catastrophes to get in our way this time, nor any personal tragedies.

A friend shared video game philosophy with me recently: I have food, I have water; I’m not bleeding. That’s a good day. I smiled because I’m into video games about as much as I’m into cutting my leg off with a blunt saw. But it’s not a bad mantra to live by in the real world.