Dear PiePie,
It’s the last day of 2020. What a year to usher in the ‘roaring 20s’.
It’s been a scary, tiring year for many people. Covid took the headlines, infecting 83M people and resulting in more than 1.8M deaths. It halted travel and caused a shift in how people work and play. It locked people in at homes to ‘flatten the curve’. It decimated businesses that relied on in-person interactions like F&B and retail.
But it’s also been a year of opportunities for some, as the stock market boomed and demonstrated the divergence between the real economy and the financial economy. It boosted digital adoption – in payments and food delivery and entertainment – with aunties in Singapore learning how to use QR codes en masse.
For us, we have been fortunate. None of us contracted Covid. None of us lost our jobs, even being able to work from home. In this upending of worlds, Mommy and me have been able to spend a lot more time around you. Without Covid, most working parents would never have been at home to witness the growth of their child day-in, day-out.
Perhaps there isn’t a lasting impact to how our relationship will turn out eventually. But I’m simply happy to have experienced those moments with you. As you learnt to walk, and then jump, and then climb the stairs, and then fall down the stairs. As you went from eating mushy food to solids to grabbing our rice and pasta and potatoes and carrots. As your entertainment preference changed from BTS to Frozen/Moana to Cocomelon to Kongsuni. As you learnt to make facial expressions and throw fake tantrums and furrow your eyebrows.
It’s been a wild ride, and we’re barely able to keep up with you. But it’s brought so much joy and variety to our lives.
So, although 2020 was a wash for many people, it was a good year for us because we got to experience so much more with you.
Love, Dad