My word for this week, whose opening days hold the closing moments of the year, sounds soft but is filled with power.

Community.

Community is what we have missed so much. Community is what has the power to repair and lift.

The virus that carried destruction into our bodies also carried a clarion truth: we are all in this together. We live in one shared home. We share one biology. We live and die together.

So blast it in the foundation of your house. Scrawl it in freshly poured sidewalk. Dig it into the sandbox at the quiet park. Scar it into the plywood covering the windows of your old favorite restaurant.

Tattoo it on your forehead backwards.

We are all in this together.

May we enter the new year with an expanded sense of who we belong to so that all may be lifted. May we remind ourselves as often as we will forget that we are one human family. May we believe in the possibility of a world where everyone has enough — food, vaccine, love. May we remember the joy and the power of community. If this dying year could at least teach us that, it would be something.