Every day from here on
It is, officially, the shortest day of the year 2020.
Today, December 21, is the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere.
As NASA’s “What’s Up – December 2020” podcast explains, “On the December solstice, the Sun reaches its southernmost position in the sky, no matter where on Earth you happen to be. In the Northern hemisphere, the Sun travels its lowest, shortest path across the sky on that day. Thus, in the north, the winter solstice brings the shortest day of the year, in terms of hours of sunlight.”1
Every day since the Summer Solstice in June, the days have been growing shorter here in the United States.
The light has been fading.
A perfect metaphor for this terrible year of 2020.
A year when so much of our light has been fading in so many ways.
A year when — as of this morning — nearly 1.7 million people across the globe and 317,684 people in the United States have lost their lives to this terrible pandemic.2 And where every bit of good news — we have vaccines!3 — is met with a bit of bad news — there’s a new faster-spreading variant!4 — to take our breath away.
Like everyone else, The Legal Genealogist is weary of it all.
On this shortest day of the year 2020, it’s time to remind ourselves that it’s the last day of 2020 when the light will be fading.
The very last day of this difficult year when the sunlight will be less, rather than more.
Our nine hours, 15 minutes and 17 seconds of daylight today will give way to nine hours, 15 minutes and 20 seconds tomorrow and nine hours, 15 minutes and 28 seconds on Wednesday.5
The solstice doesn’t just mark the shortest day of the year.
It marks the return of the light.
Let’s give ourselves credit for making it this far.
And keep on doing what we need to…
To make it through.
To make it so as many of us as possible can make it through.
So we can all celebrate the return of the light.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “The return of the light,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 21 Dec 2020).
Image adapted from a Twitter post by @DeidreDykes, 19 Oct 2020.
- NASA, “What’s Up – December 2020” podcast, transcript posted 2 Dec 2020 (https://www.nasa.gov : accessed 21 Dec 2020). ↩
- See Coronavirus Resource Center, Johns Hopkins University & Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/ : accessed 21 Dec 2020). ↩
- See “COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease): Vaccines,” Centers for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/ : accessed 21 Dec 2020). ↩
- See Marilynn Marchione, “EXPLAINER: Are new coronavirus strains cause for concern?,” Associated Press, posted 20 Dec 2020 (https://apnews.com/ : accessed 21 Dec 2020). ↩
- “New York, New York, USA — Sunrise, Sunset, and Daylength, December 2020,” Timeanddate.com (https://www.timeanddate.com/ : accessed 21 Dec 2020). ↩