New Year's Day is an arbitrary date

On the cusp of a new year, gray clouds hover overhead, and a cold breeze chills my aging bones. The January 1 date for turning the calendar's page is an arbitrary choice. No celestial or terrestrial event marks the date. Many businesses use a different calendar to divide their years (July 1 to June 30 is a popular choice).

On this night, people will celebrate the dawn of the new year, as if something had changed. But 2018 melts into 2019 imperceptibly. The death of one year and the birth of another brings fireworks, resolutions, and hope, but Jan. 1 is seldom noticeably different from the day before.

It is natural to wish for a better year as the old year ends. Many people will make resolutions to do better, do more, be better, be more helpful, be more generous and caring. But the resolve of Dec. 31 slowly dissolves into the hustle and bustle of 2019. Few resolutions and few hopes for the new year are followed or fulfilled. The year may change, but we remain the same.

A few years ago, as I toasted the new year quietly at home with my wife, she said, "I hope next year, no one we love will get sick or die." It was a deeply felt desire. In the previous consecutive several years, we had faced the deaths of parents, siblings and good friends. It was difficult to be hopeful about a new year that did not include our departed loved ones. She expressed that hope about the new year twice before a year finally came when we didn't travel to a funeral.

We all hope for a new year that was better than the last one or less painful than the last one. But pain inevitably comes, and as we grow older the pain of lost family and friends grows more frequent. Still, we wish for others and for ourselves a happy new year, a year without death and despair, a year with happiness and fulfillment, with comfort and achievement.

This is the day, an otherwise ordinary winter day, when we resolve and wish for what will come.