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My favorite cover of Auld Lang Syne. By Vandaveer.

I read a piece by Peggy Noonan today in the WSJ that reflects on the lyrics of the song and what it says, not just about reflecting on those that are presently in your life, but also those from your past.  Even the ones that broke my heart or just faded away, there is a feeling of gratitude I have towards them as I reflect on the year.

The question it asks is clear: Should those we knew and loved be forgotten and never thought of? Should old times past be forgotten? No, says the song, they shouldn’t be. We’ll remember those times and those people, we’ll toast them now and always, we’ll keep them close. “We’ll take a cup of kindness yet.”

“The phrase old acquaintance is important,” says my friend John Whitehead, fabled figure of the old Goldman Sachs, the Reagan State Department, and D-Day. “It’s not only your close friends and people you love, it’s people you knew even casually, and you think of them and it brings tears to my eyes.” For him, acquaintance includes, “your heroes, my heroes—the Winston Churchills of life, the ones you admire. They’re old acquaintances too.”

But “the interesting, more serious message in the song is that the past is important, we mustn’t forget it, the old has something for us.”

So does the present, as the last stanza makes clear. The song is not only about those who were in your life, but those who are in your life. “And there’s a hand, my trusty friend, and give a hand of thine, We’ll take a right good-will draught for auld lang syne.”

If there was a year where I needed friendship the most, it was 2010.  I am so grateful to old and new friends alike for being in my life.  Your love has given me joy and strength to persevere in the face of adversity in this past year. My only new year’s resolution is to return that ten-fold.  Cheers.