So, after all that we have endured in 2016, I hear tell that it’s going to last a second longer. Imagine. Of all the years to add another second to. I’m not all that interested in the particulars as to why that is, I just find that extra second a tad too much.

This year started out pretty much like any other, with promise, like all new years do. There we were moseying along and then, wham!

We’ve lost so many artists this year, my head spins. Including George Michael of Wham! I can’t even get my head around the loss of Princess Leia. Wow! She made girls sit up and take notice way back in the 1970s. What made Princess Leia a force to be reckoned with was the force of the person who portrayed her, Carrie Fisher. (And now her mom. Wow, again.)

Carrie Fisher’s loss felt close to home. She suffered an incident in midair. Where there were no paramedics at the ready to deploy the paddles immediately. There was no IV in place, no monitor to signal exactly when a shock was needed to preserve life.

I feel sorry for her daughter and her family, because there, but for the grace of God, go us. When my husband had a massive heart attack in June, all those variables were in place. He decided to code after the paramedics had him hooked up to monitors and had already placed an IV.

That moment sent us on a roller coaster ride that hasn’t yet ended. The car has slowed down, the dips have leveled off, but we’re still on it, and will be on it forever. But the operative word here is: be. A state of being, as opposed to a state of having been.

The main thing I had planned for this year was to pursue a third copyediting certificate. This one would take four semesters and be the most intensive training so far. The last semester scheduled to end this December seemed so far away. And right when I was due to start the third course, I found myself in the ER trauma room watching them work furiously to save my husband’s life.

His recovery took center stage, but I began my course with faith that I would persevere and so would he. I had little sleep and little rest for months. Every spare moment I had, I worked on my assignments, always wondering why I felt so stressed editing for my teacher when I didn’t editing for others. That was weird.

I also prepared for the inevitable flare-up that would appear. I waited for the mother of all flare-ups to knock me down and not even let me type. But when I went to my rheumy in September, all was normal. I sat speechless. How could that be? After three months of intense stress? There was no explanation.

By then, my husband had returned to work, thanks to the collateral circulation his heart had built up during all his years of being an athlete. The doctor called him his “Miracle Man”  when he sauntered into the doctor’s office wearing his Stetson Fedora with the brim tipped down rakishly over his eyes. I couldn’t tell if the medical students trailing the doc that day were more in awe of his cardiac history or his hat.

By all that is written, he shouldn’t be around sauntering anywhere, but he is. I shouldn’t have aced my certificate program, but I did. And I shouldn’t have a second round of normal lab results this month, but I do.

Color me bewildered. I don’t understand it. But as they say, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Today is my birthday, and maybe after our dinner out I will stop to buy a frame for my new certificate from UC San Diego. I didn’t know they were going to make it look so impressive. Everyone says I must hang it up.

I’ve never been happier to say goodbye to a year as I am to this one. I give thanks for all the good this year has given us, but I don’t want to have to wait a second longer than necessary to hang it up.

I wish all of you kind readers a Happy and Prosperous 2017!