It's getting close to the end of the year and as I look back over the past twelve months I find myself thinking of the Queen.
It was 1992, the year I graduated from Hampton School and I was already well settled up north at University. If memory serves, it was November when Windsor Castle caught fire and I was actually at home visiting. The pictures were all over the news and if you had a good line of sight, you could actually see the orange glow over the horizon where the ancient building was consumed by flames. I remember being at a friend's house in Surrey and seeing the neighbors pour out to watch the horrific spectacle. You could even taste the salt of the soot on the air.
A few days later, Elizabeth would make a public appearance at the Guild Hall and give a speech in which she would use the term 'Annus Horribilis' to describe the year. Aside from the destruction of Windsor Castle, the Queen was referring to the divorces of two of her children which had happened the same year. She looked as regal as ever but something in her manner made her look more human. Her eyes were downcast and misty, her voice had none of it's usual energy and her shoulders seemed bowed under the weight of twelve months of heart-ache.
I was eighteen and knew everything about the world.
I'm forty now and I know less, and I find myself wondering if this has been my Annus Horribilis. 2014 has not been kind to us. At times it felt that we were rolling with the punches. The assault would stop as suddenly as it started, only to begin anew from a different, unforeseen angle.
But then I remember the little things. In particular, two little boys.
How could it be possible to write off the year in which Leo came to us? The three weeks in the hospital were filled with stress, panic, tears and worries. But now all is better and in the few short weeks he has been among us, he has given us more than we feel we lost.
It feels good to smile. It feels good to laugh and it feels good to cry now and again, when you know you'll be reduced to giggles by the next thing your sons do.
I feel the need to rededicate myself to things in the New Year. The list is long but near the top is my wish to bring tenderness back in to my time with my kids. After much of what has happened this year, I know I must cut a lonesome figure, sitting on a couch, eyes distant, thinking about my demons - all the time forgetting that my better angels are right there in front of me.
2015 - the year of my 'filios miribilis'...
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