Tomorrow brings the start of 2024. I won’t write about resolutions because they never last through January, do they? Instead, I’m going to write about things past and things to come. Dreams dashed. Goals to conquer.

And of course, I will write about matters of the heart.

2024 means that I will no longer be able to say “My eldest son, Brendan Bjørn, died last year.” It will now be said, “My eldest son, Brendan Bjørn, died in 2022.” You may think that slight change of wording isn’t important, but in matters of the heart, it certainly is. There is this feeling of it putting his living memory further behind in the years…and a concern that others may think the grief is now more distant rather than it still permeating every fibre of my being, every waking moment, and every breath taken.

Those of us who have lost a child will understand.

January 2024 will mark 16 years since I worked my last professional job – one I absolutely loved – as a School Guidance Counselor. As some of you know, I was fired for the simple reason of being pregnant and unwed. I was told that I ‘cast grave discredit upon the parish and school’ and that I ‘tarnished the reputation’ of the school (FYI: it was a Catholic school in the US). I was escorted off the school grounds with 2 days notice, no income, no health insurance, and unable to say goodbye to all of the students I had grown so close to, many of them crying as I left…just as I was.

This defining moment in my life will definitely be a chapter in my book and 2024 will see me dedicated to finally finishing that book.

February 2024 will find me and Declan leaving Ireland. This beautiful island has given much to us, but also taken a lot from us. Have no doubt, though, Ireland will certainly always be etched upon our hearts. And, when the time is right, I will announce a wonderful legacy of Brendan Bjørn’s here in Ireland that I’ve been working on. But for now, suffice to say, we will be moving near to family. I will be settling Declan in the most solid, secure, and holistically healthiest surroundings I can think of so that when he grows to be a man, he is surrounded by what I wished for in my own early years but didn’t have.

A parent’s dream should always be to wish more for their children than what they had. May it be so.

Syttende Mai (17 May) 2024 will be 2 years since we lost our beloved Brendan Bjørn. Declan and I will be celebrating the day as Syttende Mai while simultaneously holding close and honouring his memory. I’m not sure how we will manage that mix of emotions, but we will try our best. And again, we will do this surrounded by the warm support of family and hopefully by then with a few new friends as well.

October 2024 will bring what would have been Brendan Bjørn’s 20th birthday. I can’t even fathom that now and I’m sure the day will hit me hard. May I always be comforted by the 17 and 1/2 years I was blessed with him.

And finally, Christmas 2024, you will find us sitting around the family dinner table sharing a big Christmas meal, highlighted by love and laughter and what I know will be a sense of peace as the year will wind down to another close. It will be a sense of peace that my heart so desperately aches for and indeed it needs.

I know this coming year will be quite challenging in all we have planned. I’m 58 and my soul is weary in many regards. Yet, I hope that with these changes, it will be revitalised. I pray that I will be able to finally get my health issues tended to and bring them to a much more manageable, less troublesome, place. I look forward to finding work that sustains and fulfills me. And most of all, I hope Declan truly blossoms with our new life, in a new school and the change of environment.

I say goodbye to 2023 with so many goals, hopes and dreams in store for 2024, while also remembering the past – both distant and recent – which has brought us to this point today.

2024 will definitely be a momentous chapter in the book of our journey.

May your New Year bring you blessings and dreams fulfilled, too.