This year felt saturated with loss.

My oldest child removed all of her belongings from our home that she’s lived in since she was a young girl and moved three states away from us. Mid-year, I had to leave a job and coworkers that I adored. My hopes for my thirdborn returning to in-person school in the fall failed. My youngest decided (quite abruptly) that he was now too old for bedtime reading with me. (I know that sounds insignificant, but those moments were so precious to me.) My sweet, dear father-in-law breathed his last, and we are all still trying to figure out what this new, emptier normal is supposed to be like. And lastly, my own precious family of six is walking through a dissonance amongst us that I am grieving so deeply, and that I know will be long and difficult to rectify. So much loss. …

We went into town the other night to walk around the lake, and the lights felt so calming. Each little candle—lit carefully and quietly night after night by people I’ve never seen—had such a small flame, flickering now and then in the cold night breeze. On their own, they were so simple, so faint. But they were placed one after the other, encircling the whole lake, and it was so beautiful. So calming.

I guess my hope for 2024 is that I can find the little candles of joy in each day—I know they’re there, somewhere, amidst the disappointment and the loss—and that I can place them on my path, one after the other. And maybe some day I will be able to step back and see that I’ve managed to illuminate the entire dark lake.