Every December 31, New Year’s celebrations are held across the globe. Although the celebrity entertainment has changed over time, the concept remains the same… reflect on the old year and ring in the new. Every first day of January marks a new year, a fresh start, the prospect of something great and exciting, the first of 365 unedited pages of history.
Fifty years ago, a thirty-something couple faced a new year that would be prove to be one of profound change and historical significance. They wouldn’t have known on that New Year’s Eve that this would be the year of the first successful kidney transplant, the first flight of a Boeing 727 jet, and the first foray of a woman (a Soviet cosmonaut) into space. They wouldn’t have imagined that the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Donny Osmond, and James Bond would become household names and remain so fifty years later. They would have been horrified at the thought that the President of the United States, in the prime of his life with a beautiful young family, would suddenly be taken in an act of senseless and inexplicable violence.
For all the advances to come in that new year, a woman still had to wait for time and a physician to confirm the impending arrival of a child. As I look over my laptop at their wedding picture I wonder if, in the wee hours of that new year, they talked about how “this time next year” things might be different with a new baby in the house. I can imagine them looking across at their sleeping four-year-old and wondering how she might react to a new brother or sister. (For the record, the four-year-old later declared she might rather have had a pony.)
Fifty years later, the couple now gone, their descendants face a new year, a clean slate of unedited pages to write into history. While five minutes on the Internet provides more than enough fodder for a paragraph on the historical significance of years gone by, one must still live out the new year to determine the cause and effect of its changes and events. Fifty years from now, decisions, discoveries, and milestones yet to occur may be of profound interest to someone, like me, facing her fiftieth year of life. As I consider the advancements of the past fifty years, I wonder what technology she will use to capture her thoughts. While I face the reality of having lived more years than I have left on this earth, I can only imagine whether medical advances will give her fifty years more, whether cancer and heart disease, colds and flu, hot flashes, irregularity, aching back, and flat feet will be relics of medical history.
Oh, what a difference a year can make…