An Elegy to the Year Now Passing

A single porch light glows across the night scene from my back window. The wind is blowing gently, but persuasively. A certain sadness seems entwined in this, and yet the warm glow of the Christmas lights that twinkle about me inside pulls me from waxing on too much about the cold I only see, and am not left to survive in this night. Such is 2007 as it bids us farewell.

Back when I was primarily a technology writer, my end of the year articles typically were highly optimistic treatises talking up the glories of the segment of the industry I wrote about. There are always plenty of good events that happen in a year for an industry, and everyone likes a feel good story to sum up a year. And yet one year not too long ago, the whole idea seemed too shallow as my father lay in a hospital bed with various heart problems and my grandmother was slowly being ravaged by the cruel foe that is Alzheimer's. So I dropped the traditional article; and let it slide by as if it never happened. It has not from my pen since.

Read my full column at OFB