Happy New Year-- The Start of 2020 by Pat Kinsella Herdeg

Happy New Year’s Eve!! 

Firstly, one of my favorite poems to start the New Year:

Beannacht

(‘Blessing’ in Gaelic)    By John O’Donohue

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

-------------------------

A few pictures from Cousins gatherings long ago:

The first two are from December 1957, so yours truly is not even here yet:

Combining the two pictures from the bottom of the stairway up, the cousins are:

Tim Kinsella with Nancy Taylor, David Lochner, Mary Lou Taylor, Dan Maney, Bob Taylor with Ann Taylor, Chuck Lochner, Dan Kinsella, Julie Lochner, Sue Kinsella, Cindy Hawkes, Kathy Taylor, George Taylor, Jack Taylor and others (Mom could not see well—CAN YOU??) and Uncle Dick Lochner at the top of the stairs holding down the fort!

Then, another picture from New Year’s Eve 1999: The millennium was upon us, a new century, Y2K….

My family gathered to play instruments to welcome in the New Year, and what a time these last twenty years have been!

I wish all of you the best of New Year's, the best of 2020, that we all have our share of laughter, good stories remembered, jokes told, as we also weave a cloak of love all around those we love.