All photographs by the lovely Jessica Blaine Smith. These are our most prized possessions and I’m grateful beyond words that we had these done this year. ♥
*exhale*
This year. This ridiculous year and all of the terrible things, starting with a gorilla and ending with – well, let’s not tempt fate by suggesting what the last big terrible thing is, because 2016 still has a little time left to kick us in the teeth a little more.
2016 has taken on a life of its own, infamous in its barrage of terrible headlines piling on top of each other. We lost cultural icons and political giants. More young men were murdered because of the colour of their skin. Syria faded from the front page and then rushed back as the situation became desperate in a way that people were no longer able to ignore. And in shocking news, a qualified woman lost a job to an incompetent man, who is making quick work of selling out and dismantling a world superpower.
When we look back at 2016 we’ll remember David Bowie, Prince, Aleppo, Brexit, Donald Trump. There’s little to look at in this year and say, ‘yes, this is where things went right’, and any good in this year feels overshadowed by the weight of the bad.
In this past week people have been sharing why this year hasn’t been so bad, listing off all of those good things we should focus on instead. I get it. Optimism is prettier than realism, and I often lean to the positive side of situations, looking for ways that we can take circumstances and move forward. But while it’s become a terrible cliché, this year has been hard for a lot of people and I have never been a fan of silver linings. Sometimes things are just bad and we don’t do ourselves favours pretending otherwise. We can’t gloss over the things that cut deeply.
I gave an interview this year, and after watching it a good friend laughed at the absurdity of my saying that this hasn’t been our best year. It sounds like such an understatement, but in the way only real friends can do we laughed together because this is hardly the first year in my life that’s been marked by tragedy. This has been my worst, though, and I hope you’ll understand why I’m side eyeing you while you suggest that 2016 wasn’t all that bad. All of those things that I listed above were sad for the world, but as with every year, you’re going to encounter people who have been through particularly difficult personal circumstances, and people who might be affected by some world events differently than you are. Don’t dismiss people when they tell you they’re feeling down, just because there’s so much talk about what a bad year it was. Yes, some good things happened, but a lot of bad things happened, too, and it’s unfair to brush that aside. I know 2016 wasn’t terrible for everyone, but for some of us… yeah, it was pretty damn horrific. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t celebrate and honour the good things that happened this year, but consider skipping attempts to convince other people of the general goodness of 2016. There is nothing in this world that could possibly balance out for me what this year has been, nothing that can make up for the fact that Jude is gone, nothing that can erase those images from my head.
So this is the last day of 2016, and while I’ve been watching people wish it away, I admit that I have mixed feelings about closing the book on this year. It was the worst year of my life. We rang it in as we always do, with our best friends and champagne, and looked ahead with plans to take a trip and elevate my business, and really enjoy our kids. Everything changed. On May 6th I found Jude dead in his crib and Mother’s Day weekend was spent dismantling that crib, replacing our double stroller with a single, and funeral planning. We went almost four months without any idea what happened to our two-year-old, and then received an answer that was so ridiculous and frustrating that for the first time in my life I had the physical urge to tear out all of my hair with my hands. I left my hair where it is and we quietly began researching to understand why this happened, and then loudly started talking about it to anyone who would listen, in the hopes that we could save someone else from going through what our family has. While some people have responded with shocking cruelty, many more have heard us and taken Jude’s story to heart, and we’re grateful for that. Maybe there will be fewer families like ours this year.
Today is the last day of the worst year of my life, and while that might sound like it might bring some relief, I’m struggling with it. 2016 was the year that Jude died, but it was also the last year he was alive. It was the last year I started with three healthy, happy kids. Tomorrow the language changes. Today, Jude died this year. Tomorrow, Jude died last year. And last year feels so much farther away. Jude won’t be a physical part of my life in 2017, or in any year for the rest of my life. He’s gone, and I’m not feeling so celebratory about anything waiting for me because it will all be less good because he is not here. New Year’s Eve doesn’t bring me closer to a happy rest of my life, but farther away from my best days. Everything ahead of us now will only be something resembling lemonade.
So we pick ourselves up and keep going and find ways to get the most out of the days and years waiting for us, because what else is there? All of these people in this family are different now. Jude is gone, and that’s something we’ll be figuring out and processing for the rest of our lives, and hopefully we can move forward and do good things in his honour, leave the world better than it was before he was in it. And that’s all there is.
However you’re feeling about the end of 2016, I wish you peace as we say goodbye to this year and look ahead to what’s waiting for us. Happy New Year, all. I hope you’re ringing it in with people you love, and that 2017 will be kinder to all of us.
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Jessica Blaine Smith is a Toronto wedding and lifestyle photographer and a very lovely friend of mine. Love you, Jess. Thanks for you. ♥
Jessica’s personal blog is also fantastic. You should check it out.