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.

A Blessing to Four Generations

A huge part of this family's history is up for sale. I was asked to write a short history of the house, as recommended by the Realtor, who said buyers may want to get an understanding of the home's emotional ties. My brief, one-page history is below.

The Lake House:  a blessing to four generations

            Four generations of this family owe a great debt to M.P. “Pat” Witherington, a World War II Navy officer and then a CPA in Statesville, who selected a waterfront lot off Morrison Farm Road in 1964 before Lake Norman was filled. He stood at the edge of the unpaved and unnamed road and knew it was the perfect spot with one of the finest views of any place on the north end of the new lake. Pat, who grew up near waterways in eastern North Carolina, chose a lot at the end of a protected cove with a miles-long view of the lake. At first, his family of his wife, Harriett, and four children enjoyed the water and the view on weekend adventures involving tents, a picnic table and lots of relatives and friends. Pat and Harriett loved it so much, they decided to sell their home in Statesville and build a new home at the lake.

            The house was completed in 1967, and the family moved to the lake permanently. Each teenager had her own bedroom, and all the children grew up on the water, boating, swimming, water skiing and watching new homes appear as lake living grew more popular. Sometimes, Pat would get home from a long day at the office and immediately take a quick swim off the dock.

            In 1972, by-then-widowed Pat remarried, and he moved to his new bride’s home in Statesville. For the now mostly grown children, The Lake House, as it had come to be known, would always be home. Pat kept the Lake House as a gathering spot for his children, their spouses and their children and grandchildren. Second generation families spent their vacations and special weekends at The Lake House. Each new generation fell in love with the house and the water and the heritage and history the house represented.

            The extended family continued to gather at The Lake House over the decades for Thanksgiving, Christmas, graduation celebrations, weddings, childbirths and other special occasions. The original siblings, scattered by careers, would all gather at the lake with their children, which forced some crowded sleeping arrangements but resulted in immutable memories. The third-generation cousins would form a Cousins Club and conspire to play tricks on their parents or produce talent shows for them, and those precious moments would return two decades later, when the fourth-generation children formed the same group dynamics during vacations at The Lake House.

            Each generation has found solace at The Lake House. During times of discord or crisis, they could escape to the lake to sit on the porch and look out across the water. Whether the lake sparkled with sunlight or roiled with an approaching rainstorm inching its way toward the cove, the second-floor porch was the spot to see nature’s beauty and to feel all tensions and worries drain away. If the weather was too cold for porch sitting, the living room fireplace could provide nearly as effective emotional healing.

            When Pat died in 2010, he left The Lake House to his children, who cherished it as the greatest bequest they could ever receive, and they and their children and grandchildren continued to enjoy the lake. Sadly, the expense of maintaining the house and the distance from their primary homes made keeping the house indefinitely an impossible dream. The calming, relaxing, ideal spot will have to bless another family.

Memories were served at 80th birthday celebration

Nearly 10 years ago, my wife's family gathered for a major milestone, her dad's 80th birthday. The unspoken message was that this might be the last good opportunity to celebrate the life of the family patriarch. It wasn't. Although he had experienced some fairly serious health problems before the year 2000, he made it almost 10 more years, and the milestones included some graduations and weddings and the births of seven great-grandchildren. It was not until January a year ago that we had to face his mortality head-on. Surgery 14 months ago revealed the cause of some pain he'd had — an aggressive tumor that had already spread beyond his gall bladder into his pancreas and liver. The prognosis was dire, but he accepted it with stoic good humor, with "equanimity," I wrote at the time. A good oncologist and some harsh treatments gave him nearly a full year of relatively good health before the tumor counter-attacked and ultimately prevailed. He died at his home March 24.

But back to that 80th birthday party. The gathering included his wife, brother and sister-in-law, children, sons- and daughter-in-law, stepchildren and grandchildren. Someone suggested that we give him our memories in the form of a scrapbook. A multitude of photographs were made into collages of his life. Several of us, the more verbal and less visual, I suppose, wrote their memories of him.

Here are two of those memories, from my wife, his eldest daughter, and from me, the guy who stole her away from her loving daddy.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. . .” Galations 5:22-23

Dear Daddy,

When I think of your influence on my life, I think of the fruit of the Spirit. The love you have given, the joy we see in your face when we’re gathered together, the patience with which you disciplined us, the kindness and goodness that are evident in all that you do, the gentleness with which you held and cared for your grandchildren, the self-control necessary to be a responsible husband, father, and son.
There is no way that I can adequately express how much your example. . .just the way you have lived your life. . .has meant to me.
There are some memories that remain vivid to me.
* You taking me downtown to the shoe store with the little carousel and buying me a pair of black patent leather shoes.
* Going to Howard Johnson’s for lunch and ordering banana splits for dessert. We had to wait while they went to the store and bought the bananas.
* When you came to Beulah’s to tell us that Mary had been born and that she was being named after your grandmother.
* Listening as you read to us from the big green storybook, “My Bookhouse.”
* Being comforted by you when I thought a little wind must mean a hurricane. That was in first grade after Mrs. Cockrell had told us all about Hurricane Hazel.
* When you sang the gasoline song in the car.
* Riding out to Long Island or just going for drives with all the windows down in the red Buick.
* Driving out to the lake after you got off work for a pre-dinner swim and looking at that spot where the house is and saying “Won’t it be great when all we have to do is walk up the hill?”
* Trying to learn a little about golf in the “field” behind the house on Broad Street.
* Sitting in Granny’s living room when Mama was having a rough time and you telling us how she was sick and how much you loved her.
* Having you hand me the keys to the other car after I wrecked the little blue Ford, so that Ann & I could still go get ice cream.
* Finding you waiting for me at the table when I came home from a miserable date with Timmy Moore, wanting to say or do something that would make me less miserable.
* Walking down the aisle with you at my wedding.
* Hearing you say “She’s just beautiful!” when I opened my eyes after Tracy was born.
* How you cared for Granny all of your life and especially after she went to the nursing home.

There are so many more memories, all of them warm and wonderful. I’m so thankful for all of them, and for you.

Happy Birthday!

• • •

In the photo from our wedding, which is sitting on our piano, you have taken off your dark-rim glasses and are wiping tears from your eyes. I can’t say as I blame you.

I had practically stolen away your first-born daughter, your Ginnybird, and I did not have what you would call good “prospects” at the moment. I had no job and few real hopes of getting one on a long-term basis. Although I was madly in love with your daughter (and still am), I had no realistic plan for feeding, clothing and sheltering her. Nevertheless, except for that one brief moment after the ceremony, when sentiment or nostalgia or anxiety overcame your composure, you were unfailingly supportive and cheerful from the moment you welcomed me into the family. And that has been your demeanor throughout these nearly 30 years that have passed so quickly. Your advice, support, assistance and cheerful presence have been constants in our lives.

I have seen that same positive good will exhibited toward the dates of your other children and grandchildren and could only wonder, sometimes, if I had been as unappealing as some of them.

When it was my turn to make a toast at the rehearsal dinner before my eldest daughter’s marriage, I said I wasn’t sure about how to be a father-in-law, but I did have the advantage of a great role model to show me the way. I could not have been more sincere. You have been supportive when we needed a boost, wise when we needed advice, understanding when we stumbled, patient when our desires or youthfulness took over our reasoning, sympathetic when we met troubles, happy at our joys, concerned for our worries and unfailingly positive about our lives and our future.

After 80 years, you greet life with the cheerfulness of a carefree child, although I know your years have been far from carefree. You have never let the tragedies of your life — losing your father, wife, mother and sister — wear you down or embitter you. After such terrible tests, the ordinary adversities of life seem to roll off your back, and I can only admire your resilience, steadfastness and faith. I only wish I could have learned better the lessons your life has to teach and that I could better emulate your great example.

With the greatest respect and admiration, I wish you a happy 80th birthday, and many more to come.