The balance of a year spent trying to understand

My father,
a year has passed and the changes that existence has brought to my life have been great, heavy to face, to understand, to accept.
I know that the end of a year and the beginning of a new year are just conventions, traditions with no real reality, yet I can't help but look back on the past year and wonder if it has been a good year, nor, much less, to try to look ahead to reveal to myself what the coming year will be.
I know that all this is very human, but after all what am I if not a little man, inserted in an illusion experienced as reality?
A single word of yours would be enough to make me feel less alone, less abandoned, stronger in the face of adversity, more united with You. A son

My son,
do you really think that a word from me can make you feel less alone, less abandoned, stronger in the face of adversity, more united with Me?
I have already given you all the words you needed, and if they weren't enough, how could a new word of mine now succeed where my other words failed?
I know that you are a man, and that your requests are motivated by your attempt to obtain, by making yourself humble and a victim in your own eyes, something more than what you have already had, because you feel my alleged lack as a right that is yours. been removed.
Ma io I can only tell you once again that you feel lonely because you don't know how to really be with yourself, that you feel abandoned because you no longer feel like your favorite child, that you feel weak in the face of adversity because you only have yourself to face and resolve them, that you do not feel completely united with Me because you do not really believe, with all of yourself, in my existence.

You wonder if the year just ended was a good one: who can answer you if not yourself?
I can only give you some parameters with which to measure yourself, with which to compare yourself, but you are the only one who can give a certain answer to what you are asking.
It must have been a good year, if ...

If you have found time to observe yourself, instead of setting your gaze, always, on the lure of material life.
If you have found time to devote to others, instead of making an excuse for the lack of time to do it.
If you have managed, at least sometimes, to make your feelings of guilt the stimulus to change your way of being, instead of making them become the factory of other feelings of guilt, more and more oppressive.
If you have said less "I love you", but you will have proved more with facts the truth of your feelings.
If you have been able to take responsibility for your mistakes on yourself without constantly looking for a way to attribute it to others, or to circumstances, or to life in general.
If you have not felt overwhelmed by the new responsibilities that existence has proposed to you, but you will have managed to integrate them into your life together with the other responsibilities that, however it may be, always belong to you.
If you have known how to be an attentive and understanding parent, sweet but strict, open but available, ready to correct but also to admit their mistakes, making your experience not a path that your children will necessarily have to follow in the same way as you, but an indication of how you managed to trace it for yourself.
If you have known how to be an independent but affectionate child, able to participate but also to follow their own path, who knew how to communicate their needs without forgetting or overriding those of others, to whom it was not necessary to ask in time of need, and the his giving was spontaneous and heartfelt, and the renunciation left no insurmountable regrets.
If you haven't made careless promises on the wave of enthusiasm, to forget them as soon as the enthusiasm died down.
If you have worked for the pleasure of doing it and to feel useful.
If you have found, even in the most difficult moments, the ability to see something positive.
If in the disease you have been able to find the stimulus to heal internally.
If in the face of death you will not have felt like dying inside.
If you have done something for others, aware that you did not do it out of altruism, but out of your own personal need which, in combination, corresponded to someone else's need.
If you have not led your life beyond the lawful in the wake of your illusions.
If your words were not mere phonemes emitted to appear, but the mirror of your feeling.
If your emotions have made it clear to those who love you what you really feel and are unable, perhaps, to express.
If your thoughts have been tense in search of your true whys, rather than in search of happiness, because there is no true happiness if you are not aware of what you really want.
If, finally, you have fully understood at least one small truth about yourself that you never suspected.

By eliminating all those "ifs," my son, you will not have made your year more or less good but, without a doubt, you will have made it a year worth living.
If not, my son, do your best - for your sake - to make the new year you are beginning to be.
Peace be with you and with all men. Your brothers