Well, the calendar is about to turn – Phew!

This year of years has been quite a roller coaster, but hopefully the continued distribution of vaccines and the eventual signing of the latest stimulus package will keep the light at the end of the tunnel shining and coming ever closer.

That stimulus package helped highlight how our work realm was far from immune from 2020’s twists and turns. Between individual payments and PPP forgiveness, we answered questions surrounding, and tried to provide guidance through, areas that we never imagined would exist when the year began.

But it is coming to an end.

So as we prepare for 2021, I first wanted to take some time to acknowledge those who did not make it through the year because of the pandemic. No matter one’s politics, it is strikingly said that more than 330,000 people have lost their lives in the US because of COVID-19. That number is more than one in every 1,000 people in the country and more than the populations of the cities of St. Louis and Pittsburgh. The year’s slow slog has made it difficult to appreciate the enormity of the situation at times, but it has added up to a large number and should be noted.

For those of us lucky enough to have made it through, hopefully we can at least find some solace in that, and possibly even some power. We have not traveled an easy path, but it has also not been impossible. Times of tragedy also present times of surmounting immense obstacles and helping others scale them. It often takes many good stories to outweigh the power of one bad tale, but those good stories do still exist.

Let us rally around that while also helping it pushes us toward a year that has to go better than the last one.

It has to, right?

So as you do whatever you need to do to send 2020 on its way, also lift yourself up to what may be coming.