New Year’s Eve holds our lives on tiptoe, breath sucked in, waiting…expectantly. Just what is coming next? We look up into the starry heavens. Perhaps we can read our future in the stars flashing like diamonds, secrets tucked in folds of black velvet vanishing into the depths of space and eternity.
Reflecting back we study the imprint of our personal history, clues to the meaning of our very existence. Lives intersected, experiences remembered, lessons learned, hearts broken and recreated by love. If we take the time to slip off alone, meditate on years past, ponder on where we are, and the journey to this moment, we may hear God’s voice whisper to us in the stillness. He is calling us to step forward bravely into the unknown, willing to leave our safety zone. How else will we experience the adventure of life?
But let’s hesitate a moment, and savor the tapestry of New Year’s Eves past, rolling the flavor on our tongue, dancing around the memories like shadowy nymphs circling a bonfire. Take your own journey back through time, and enjoy revisiting each treasure hidden in the recesses of your heart.
In my late teens, I remember the Christmas Beach Mission Coffee Shops in Australia. A week at Torquay, one of Victoria’s ocean beach resorts. During the day we played on the beaches, connecting with summer holidaymakers. In the evenings the coffee shop became a favorite hang out for young people. Music, free coffee and refreshments, friendly people offering a listening ear, and a message of hope and acceptance with spiritual significance. And then there was the drummer… I have to admit to a personal distraction! My girlfriends and I became instant groupies!
Despite the years of New Year’s Eve parties, I liked best the times we saw the New Year in quietly, giving time to look back over the year just past, souls bared, precious moments spent talking with God about the year ahead. One year several of us sat on the sandy cliffs at Black Rock beach, slightly apart as midnight approached. Personal time gazing up at the starry Southern sky. Reflecting on our path taken, lessons staked in the sand, relationships, dreams still waiting. Then resolutions made, asking God to hold us accountable.
The wedding of my best friend, Liz, was another NYE memory. Although I was a camp leader at Bairnsdale, 300 miles away on the Gippsland Lakes, I obtained dispensation to be gone for 24 hours. She and Dick pledged their vows as the sun set on Liz’s family farm, sheep quietly grazing on the hillsides. We were all college friends, destined to share many significant moments in our future. Champagne corks shot into the sky at midnight to celebrate the start of their life together.
Many years later, on one of my trips back to Australia, life’s pendulum had swung almost 360 degrees. Bill had sent me back to visit family, staying behind in Tennessee to take care of our responsibilities. Liz, Dick and I spent New Year’s Eve together, camping at Beechworth, one of Victoria’s old gold mining towns. We hiked into town to see the New Year in, and joined the Main Street throng. I bought a bottle of champagne, and we all signed the cork after drinking our toast “To Whatever Comes Next,” desperately missing Bill’s presence; once more separated by oceans and continents. Little did I know, that it would be the last time I would see Dick. He was killed in a helicopter crash the following December.
Bill and I collected our corks in a barrel in our Wine Room at Ghost Gums in Tennessee. Years later, at a party when Liz was staying with us, a curious young friend emptied out the barrel of corks and began reading them. I couldn’t believe it when Nick pulled out the very cork that Liz, Dick and I had signed on Dick’s final New Year’s Eve. I quietly handed it to Liz, the words unspoken as tears pricked her eyes.
I could speak of other New Year’s Eves, but the most memorable of all was New Year’s Eve at the Gliding Club in Benalla, when the dial clicked over to 1981. We had spent a week flying the Christmas Competition, sharing turns in our single seat glider on triangular cross-country tasks. Just before midnight Bill took me out of the dancing merriment in the theatre of the old World War II barracks for a breath of fresh air. I sat on the curb in the moonlight, Bill at my side, when he totally surprised me and asked me to marry him. I hesitated, just briefly enough to tease him. The strains of Old Lang Syne called us back inside to our friends, and we returned, most not realizing that our future had irrevocably changed in that moment. One of our pilot friends looked at us quizzically when we rejoined the party. "Is there something you should tell me?" he asked. How on earth did he know!
These are different days now. My soulmate has gone on ahead, and I am left to find my way alone. So how do I see New Year’s Eve now? The stars still rotate across the sky, the seasons still change, and life continues. Deep loss demands that we find the meaning of our individual imprint. A half moon hangs suspended in the winter sky. Its beauty now lies in the curve of its half crescent. Not full, yet perfect in its altered form. I know instinctively that God is telling me I am complete, because I am created in His image. It’s hard when all my friends have their partners to share all those treasured moments of life with, while I stand alone. But my memories remind me that I have been loved to the depths of my being, and I can be content because of that treasure I hold in my heart forever. Bill gave me a glimpse into the very heart of God.
Starlight beckons.
Stretch beyond your limits.
Mysteries await those willing
To fly
