It has been a year we would all like to forget but one which we likely never will. It is a scar on our collective psyche that we shall someday tell our grandchildren about. Challenges were hurled at us like snowballs: home learning, home working, job loss, loneliness and isolation, tragedy after tragedy dealt to our wee province. Some days just getting out of bed was an achievement, anything else was a bonus.

We dug deep, really deep. We carried on and more than that, we helped each other. We shared music and kindness, we dropped off masks and toilet paper, we hung signs and hearts in our windows and made meals for shelters and phoned and zoomed and facetimed and made sure our neighbours were OK.

We learned that the high school kid ringing our groceries through, was now a lifeline and not just the son or daughter of our neighbour. They were literally risking their lives for us. We learned that the cleaner in the hospital was as important as the surgeon. We learned respect, something that we shouldn’t have a required a pandemic to teach us.

While initially it was the thought the virus would be a leveller, we soon learned this wasn’t the case. Economic differences, those who had to work to live, who lived in crowded conditions , who had inferior or no health care or who were aged were far more likely to get sick and possibly die. 

Chances are, most of us reading this don’t qualify in most of these categories. That doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye.

Rather, we take the lessons of 2020 and we pledge to work for all to have better lives in 2021. We all have the power to make a difference . 

2021 here we come. Look out. Happy New Year!