The Family Calendar

To everything there is a season ... and with a new year comes the season of new beginnings and a chance to begin life anew.

In the spirit of celebrating these new beginnings, I would like to share an excerpt from a story written by one of my favorite inspirational writers, Marjorie Holmes. The story is from her book, Love and Laughter, and is titled, "The Family Calendar."

I wanted to write a similar post, but suffered from a bout of writer's block and couldn't come up with the words. There's no way I could have said it as eloquently and as beautifully as Ms. Holmes did, though, and I hope you like it as much as I do.

This is the season of calendars. They make their bright bustling invasion even before the old year is laid to rest. Calendars, you think, taking down the old one in the kitchen, to replace it with the new. Yet, with a tinge of regret, you hold it a minute longer. You know it isn't the illustration that makes you reluctant to part with it. It is the scribbled notations: Surprise party at the Engelbachs' ... Dentist, Johnny, 4:00 ... Graduation ... Mark's wedding. Some of the spaces are crammed with appointments and with reminders. Others bear witness to a child's eagerness: "My birthday," and a picture of the pet he's been dreaming of. It is tattered and smudged, this packet of papers you hold in your hand. It is fingerprinted and jelly-smeared. Yet it is a rich document of living, for fixed there with pen and pencil strokes are all the things that mattered, the occasions so eagerly anticipated: the parties, the plays, the dances. The hopes, the disappointments, the tragedies. Finished now, over -- only a few of them to remain alive in memory. And gazing on the new one, so bright, so clean, unmarked, you ponder: What record will be written there before another year has passed? What shining events to be looked forward to? What trivial tasks dutifully cited; what joys, or sorrows? For the calendar that hangs in the kitchen is so much more than a sheaf of dates -- it is your family's history.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

May the pages of your new year's calendar be filled
with many happy occasions and sweet memories.