UNHAPPY NEW YEAR!

Unhappy New Year?

Let’s face it. 2021 was a mess.

Despite the various vaccines and the masking restrictions and the social distancing, the pandemic is still with us. More than 800,000 people have died of COVID so far here in the United States, and the numbers worldwide are even worse, almost 4.3 million deaths. And if that’s not bad enough, the Delta variant that has been raging across America has just made a new friend, the Omicron variant. And if that’s not bad enough, you can bet your bottom dollar on the fact that the Omicron variant will soon spin-off another variant and another and another.

No matter what the anti-vaxxers say, the pandemic is real, and it ain’t going away.

What also isn’t going away is climate change. 2021 saw bad weather like we haven’t seen ever. Most recently we saw those super tornadoes rip across Kentucky and Tennessee and even Illinois. They killed almost a hundred people and wrecked some towns that will never be rebuilt.

But that’s not all.

Let’s not forget the firestorms that ravaged the west coast, the typhoons in the pacific, and the temperature increases that are not only affecting us here in the US, but are changing the entire world. Ice is melting in Greenland and Iceland and north of the Arctic Circle like never before.

But that’s not all.

Right here in the United States, crime and violence are on the rise too. 2021 began with the riots in Washington, DC, and the year is ending with all of us following the school shooting that took place in Michigan recently. Both are troubling and disturbing, but what is just as troubling and disturbing is the rise of “normal” crime and violence. This is the violence and crime we read about in our newspapers and watch on our news shows everyday, the dozens of people who are murdered in cities like Chicago every week. So far this year, Chicago has seen almost 790 murders.

This bad year is coming to an end, and a new year is starting. Everywhere I go, people are greeting me with a “Happy New Year” wish. My friends and family members smile and say it over and over. “Happy New Year.”

I don’t know if they believe it or not that this New Year will be happy, but maybe like me they are hopeful that this year will not be the mess last year was.

After all, hope is our mother.

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My recent column for the great Dziennik Zwiazkowy, the oldest Polish Daily in America.