Last Friday night of the year. Finally I had some down time to write this. This year has been an unforgettable one. The biggest event is the birth of my son. I could never imagine how much my life has changed, FOR THE BETTER. There are only my wife and myself here to take care of him. Tired, busy and sleepy most of the time. But we did it with a smile on our face. We are thankful for that.

This time last year, we were dealing with the loss of our cat, Kimi, who to us was a true son. We still miss him dearly every day. I personally feel thankful for having my family here with me. Without them, I would have had to deal with the loss myself. I don’t even want to think about it. It feels like yesterday that we found Kimi breathing heavily for the first time, drove him to Ames for an urgent intervention and said goodbye for the last time. It’s been more than a year since then. Time flies by and it does heal things. Slowly. Painfully slowly.

I recently heard of a passing of an old colleague. We met when I first started in the advertising agency in Vietnam more than 10 years ago. We were not close. We did not talk or meet in the last 10 years or so. My memory of him is that of a nice and kind man. The kind of impression that left me a bit sad when I heard he passed. A tragically familiar story of a young man succumbing to cancer. People rushed to his Facebook page to say goodbye and express love. I guess at the end of the day, that’s how your life is measured. You can’t take your thousands, millions or billions with you to the other side. I am not sure you can buy real love in the end. That’s a lesson there.

I also read about Ben Sasse, the former Senator from Nebraska. He announced that he was diagnosed with a terminal cancer and he was dying. I did not agree with his politics most of the time, but I applauded him for standing up to his belief. Regardless, I felt bad. Even in his 50s, that’s too early to learn that you are going away for good soon.

Life is too short. I bet my former colleage, Ben and Kimi would give anything to feel better and have more time. But normally we are consumed with a lot of other things that take time away from loved ones. I am guilty of that. I have been consumed by things that I am sure one, five or ten years from now would mean utterly nothing to me. But I’d love to have my son as a one year old back. You know, statistically speaking, I already lived half, give or take and let’s hope that’s on the lower side, of my life. I’d like to think that I am more mature. But the real measure is 1/ whether I really live my life in a way that I spend as much time with my family and 2/ whether people will say a few things nice about me years from now.

My wife and I bought a white board at home. The first thing we put on it reads “Looking up, we are poorer than plenty. Zooming out, we are luckier than many”. Trust me, I may sound depressed, but I am grateful. I have to be.

Happy Holidays, everyone! Hug your loved ones!