I find myself waking up, or perhaps more truthfully, trying to pull myself into a new year. It feels like a tug-of-war between the sweetness of dreamland, which keeps calling me back, and the quiet desire to get up and savour the very first chai of twenty twenty-four. The temptation to sink deeper into sleep is strong, but in the end, the chai wins, and I slowly sit up in bed.

My eyes are still heavy with dreams, my mind wrapped in fog, and my hair is a complete mess. “Good morning, twenty twenty-four,” I whisper softly. “Will you be kind to me? Will you bring moments of joy and a few lovely surprises along the way?” Yet almost instantly, another voice rises within me, far less gentle and far less hopeful. “Don’t expect an easy road. Haven’t you learnt that by now? Life is hard, and this year will be no different.”

It feels as though twenty twenty-four is already standing at the door with its challenges in hand, before it has barely even begun. And still, I wonder if perhaps I might at least be granted one quiet day. One small pause. One moment to gather strength for whatever lies ahead.

As always, my chai works its quiet magic. Sip by sip, it steadies me. It warms not just my hands but something deeper within me too. There is something so comforting in its familiarity, in the way it asks nothing of me except that I stop for a moment and breathe. In the midst of life’s uncertainties, my chai remains one of my simplest and most faithful comforts.

Around two and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with a spinal tumour. That diagnosis marked the beginning of a long and difficult road, followed by twelve months of recovery. It was an intense season of pain, healing, and learning patience in ways I never wanted to. But little by little, the early morning headaches caused by spinal cord leakage eased, and in time I regained the ability to walk unaided. That alone felt nothing short of miraculous.

They say lightning doesn’t strike twice. If that is true, then I can only say it can come unimaginably close the second time around — or at least that has been my experience. Considering that the chance of a person developing a spinal tumour in their lifetime is 0.00074%, I cannot help but wonder at the unfathomable odds of both a daughter and a mother facing the same spinal tumour.

And yet, on the final day of November twenty twenty-three, I found myself having to share that same devastating news with my 82-year-old mother.

So this morning feels especially tender. It may be the last quiet morning for a while where I can stay in bed with my chai and let the day begin slowly. Tomorrow is the beginning of my mother’s hospital admission, and the day after that she will undergo surgery. The knowledge of what is coming sits heavily beside me, making this simple morning feel both precious and fragile. As I sit here, cradling my cup, I feel a swirl of emotions — anticipation, worry, sadness, and a deep sense of responsibility for what lies ahead.

This is how I enter twenty twenty-four: somewhere between hope and realism, between gratitude for the warmth in my hands and the uncertainty waiting just beyond today. I do not know what this year will hold. I only know that I will meet it the same way I have met so much before — with trembling hands perhaps, but also with courage, with love, and with God’s help, with the quiet determination to keep going.

May twenty twenty-four be merciful to us all.