It’s that time of year again: December 31. New Year’s Eve. Reviewing and reliving the events of 2014 is, for all practical intents and purposes, unavoidable lest I choose to remove myself from all of mainstream or social media for the next week or so (which I do not).

Once upon a time I truly enjoyed year-end tributes and welcomed the opportunity to remember and reflect on people or plights that had captured our interest and captivated our conscience, whether fleetingly or for months on end … dates and faces and memories set to a carefully crafted soundtrack and beautifully scripted words, chock full of images shared by a community, nation or world.

But this year I do not relish the opportunity to relive or rehash. I am struggling too much with the present to grapple again with the past.

I see the snapshots and hear the sound bites of 2014 and it unfailingly evokes memories that I can’t forget just because a new year begins tomorrow. I see images of Malaysia flight 370 from March 8th and remember that “normal” disappeared from our lives that same day and, similarly, has yet to be rediscovered. I see a capsized Korean ferry April 16 and remember the depths to which our hearts sank that same night as we learned that Callen had not achieved remission. And so it goes, month after month. Even our computer screen saver torments me now with its year in review slideshow, displaying precious few pictures of life before cancer. Before Callen turned plethoric and puffy. Before his pristine baby flesh turned an odd hue of green-grey and was pierced not once but 21 times, leaving scars incongruent with a normal childhood. Before the sparkle dimmed in his eyes and they became sunken and rimmed with a purple darkness. Before his hair fell out the first time. Or the second.

I wanted to feel differently about today. I wanted today to be the end of something more than just a year. And maybe if the past month had been easier, I would have been capable of feeling something more or better. But it has not been. And so I cannot be. The past weeks have brought fever and ulcers and rashes and ER visits and profound, isolating neutropenia. There has been pain and bleeding and an inability to do the most basic functions without screaming and suffering. There has been havoc and heartache and worry anew. Maintenance phase has not been the end-all-be-all as billed. It has not brought stability or predictability or normalcy. The oasis remains a mirage. And as a result I cannot leave my grief, anger, frustration and angst on the calendar pages of 2014.

That’s not to say there haven’t been many amazing people and moments of grace during 2014: there absolutely have been! And there are pictures and videos and memories of those, too. And on a day when I am again in a better place, I will recap some as-of-yet memorialized experiences of recent months. But they have come about because my son has cancer. And some days (this being one of them) I simply refuse to give cancer the satisfaction of having given or taught me anything. Because today I would simply rather go without, or remain ignorant, than to experience or know any joy or blessing because of what Callen must endure.

So that’s it. My personal year in review, such as it is. It’s not set to catchy music. It’s not pretty or polished. It probably won’t leave you with a smile on your face, happy you’ve tuned in. It’s not about things that happen to “other people in other places”. It is terrifyingly up close and deeply personal. It is a gaping wound, jagged and raw and hemorrhaging. It is riddled with pain and anxiety. It is afraid to hope, despite desperately wanting to. It is incapable of making plans. It is bleary-eyed and unfocused from seeing what it has seen. It is a view of the future as fragile and uncertain, not unlike its most recent past. It is anything, anything, but at its end.