The Last Thought of 2022

I must remind myself when I walk the paths of life that not everyone is experiencing love, the peaks of their life, or finding themselves enjoying the world around them. This is my little twelfth-month reminder that I must carry myself into the next year with compassion, empathy, and care for others. It is so easy to get caught up in who you are, how you are doing, and what is happening to you. This is all good and I believe you should be your first priority, but there are so many little moments we can devote to others. One of the most outstanding forms of gratefulness is to take care of the people and things you are grateful for. We simply cannot let ourselves take things for granted anymore.

The year is coming to a close, and while 2022 was a year of post-pandemic life, hope, and progress for the nation, I couldn't help but ponder over how this year was in contrast filled with a lot of death. Many loved ones were lost, young hearts, undeserving souls, and loving people. I can tell you that it is not fair to lose someone who loves you unconditionally. Unconditional is subject to no change, but you can’t stop some things from changing. So I say it is never fair, but it is not the world's job to be fair, and equitable. However, it is our job to pick up the pieces and create something that is fair to our feelings. There is plenty of space in this world for us to remember, mourn, and celebrate these people, for that is the best we can do. To not take their lives for granted, to not let them be forgotten for their love, smiles, and joyous moments.

I have felt inclined to write about unconditional love in my life. To remember all the people I am grateful for and to dedicate this piece to all of my loved ones, the loved ones of my loved ones, and the loved ones who need a little extra love this year. 

As a young girl, she had a father who was her best friend. He never failed to make her smile or cry, he made every afternoon better, taught her some of the most gritty life lessons, and always without a doubt made her feel like the most perfect girl in the world. He loved her for being the humorous, imaginative, and adventurous 7-year-old daughter she was. This is an untouchable love. That is the thing about real love, while you might feel forms of unconditional love from many, every love is unique. There are all of these different qualities and components that make a loving dynamic extraordinary. Someone who made her feel extraordinary was her dad. To her, there was something so perfect about having a dad. Throughout her whole childhood, her dad was so important. He needs to pick her up, he has to ride behind her while biking, he must go to the bank because he said it was important, and he must stop and chat with all his friends. He has so many friends. She wants to have that many friends. There was never a moment she questioned her father, she never questions the people she loves.

This man fulfilled her first dreams and granted her first wishes. There was simply no better dad and no better man. As she grew up and she started at the big kid school she had a hard time keeping friends, so he never hesitated to be the backup playdate, and when she did have friends he would do the most to impress them. Her whole childhood she grew up in the footsteps of her dad. He made all the things happen like it was magic, or as if he was friends with her fairy godmother. He bought her first bike and eventually taught her how to use it, he took her to ice cream sundaes after the dentist, and he built all the houses for all the Littlest Pet Shops.

By fourth grade, he bought her first best friend. The smallest, sweetest, and most loving dog. A dog that was all hers. She was so happy she cried, and that had never happened. She was so happy that he trusted her, she felt so special that her dad granted her the biggest wish of all. For as long as she could remember she wanted a dog and her dad made it all happen. There was nothing better than knowing her father was the guy that made the world go round. Give it two months and her, and her dog became inseparable. She never needed another friend. There was nothing better than going home after school and seeing a puppy behind the squeaky-hinged half-opened door looking up and smiling with her eyes and one floppy ear. By middle school, she was discovering small steps toward independence and it was time to walk to school alone. But she didn’t want to so someone walked with her and her dog, a small kiss goodbye and she was off. Knowing little to nothing about what middle school was going to be like she made new friends and learned a lot about growing up. Not too soon the teenage years came on and being friends with dad was out and being friends with the people at school was in. She like many cliche teenagers outgrew her dad and he handled it like a champ.

High school came and she met some of the most important and influential people. She made friends, lost some, and fell into infatuation with others. Her best friends taught her how to love the people who are by choice in your life. Her relationships taught her that there can be twin flames and soulmates. These friendships were her excuses to stick around and to let the story of her next years unfold. The years to come became some of the most significant for her growth. Picking the people she chose to love, bringing a whole other entity of life into her space, and building a new description of what unconditional love meant to her. The uniqueness of all her relationships in high school only reminded her of how much these characteristics stemmed from her relationship with her father. The father who embarrassed her by bringing his tuba to school on her 16th birthday just to lock her out of the car and make her stand there in the parking lot while he performed happy birthday. The father who paces around her water polo games in his daughter’s oversized parka, yelling at the referees as if she wasn’t just sitting on the bench. The father who also has the cool truck, who makes running errands fun, who tells funny yet sophisticated and witty jokes, and the dad who is obsessed with her mom.

For her, another extraordinary love, a love that she felt but most importantly witnessed. Her parents are the reason the world makes somewhat sense to her. No one could fix a problem like her father, and no one could hold her better than her mother. She never understood it when people would say moms make everything better until she had her feelings hurt by some mean girl. Until she found out her mom was behind all the best Christmas gifts she got. Until she came home from school and wanted to tell her mom about a moment she was proud of at school. Until she noticed that her mom made her feel like this special person, as though there was no one like her. She noticed her mom’s food was the only thing she wanted when she was sick, and she had to admit any food was better when her mother made it. It was when she had that first heartbreak and she just sobbed in her mother’s arms, it was then when all those moments when her mom made her feel better came flooding back.

For her, there were moments of threat, like she hadn’t loved her parents enough. As she grew up through her teenage years she gained a stronger consciousness, created a more compassionate understanding toward others, and began to reflect on the fundamental relationships in her life. Who helped her become this young woman? What love cultivated her? She could only help but recollect the monumental statements of the love she had felt from the two people who raised her. The credit they deserve for cultivating her compassion and understanding. Setting standards and meaning to what unconditional love was like. She had polished the perceptive ideologies of how love is unique to the person who provides the comfort of extraordinary unconditional love.

This established independence that came with a driver’s license and weekend parties with friends was only possible with the standing friendship she had with her mother. During the years of high school, she and her mother developed a different type of dynamic. She was coming up to the age that her mother can more clearly and relate to. There were things the two of them could talk about and gossip to be had between them. One of those topics was the boyfriend. And when college came around there was a best-friend type of friendship that she was going to miss moving away from her mother when she left.

The boyfriend came at the perfect time, there had been no one like him, and she knew there never would be a person to compare. At the age of 18, she had a new relationship and new love to navigate. Risks were bigger, smiles were brighter, and efforts were greater. Being in love is the ultimate unconditional love that people look for, it is the dream that many chase, but it is a feeling many don’t know is hard to find. Something you cannot force and just because you cannot find it does not mean the other love in your life is any less. She had finally found the love that everyone talks about, the love she sees in her parents, and the love that she didn’t know she wanted. Yet her love for this boy was so different than all the love around her and so different than the relationships she has with others. There was a wave of shock for she finally understood why people chase this feeling and why love and being in love never do compare to each other at the end of the day. This was different than the admiration-based relationship she had with her dad, and it did not resonate with the dynamics she shared with her mother. There is this level of balance and mutual respect, an unspoken need for one another. The unconditional love that she is eternally grateful for, the light that was brought with his love that she can never forget. He lit a small flame within her, sparked passion, empathy, and intention, and only learned how to cultivate and nurture that flame like no other. There is this looming, untouchable presence of purity she felt when she is with him. A feeling that she craves and relies on.

There are people whom she is grateful for, there are people that have contributed to the cultivation of who she is, and there are people in her life whom she will always love unconditionally. There are people that she has lost, and will never cease to love because she has learned that unconditional love and passion is the reason she continues to persist. As she grows older she only becomes more aware of how much she must cherish and adore the people around her. It is always the time in life to start living and loving. For her, 2022 was the year that reminded her to be present and enjoy the presents around her, the people, the love, and the relationships. She should never be scared or guilty about the way she loves, the people she loves, and the reasons she loves, and neither should you. As the year has come to a close I have noticed that the beauty she sees in this world is expressed in the way we as individuals love each other.

Now I understand that she has grown and so have the people she has loved, but it only instills more elegance in the relationships she cherishes. To be lucky and to be blessed only comes with being aware and thankful. Understanding and acknowledging the important people in one’s life is the most unconditional act, so I inspire you all to enjoy the beauty and unforeseen love that comes to you in life. A reflection of the relationships you have and the unconditional love you have experienced. Be present, take breaths of shared air, and continue to strive for the relationships around you. We are cultivated by the people around us so we must never take anyone for granted.

I dedicate this piece specifically to the individuals my loved ones have lost in the year 2022. Your life and death gifts meaning and purpose to all that have experienced your love and beauty. May you rest in peace.