Remembering Y2K ~ 20 Years Later

On the Eve of this next decade, 2020 which I’m excited about, I wanted to reminisce a bit about what became dubbed as Y2K. First, I want to say that I’m looking forward to experiencing the 20’s of my lifetime (as in the decade we’re entering, not my age) and I can’t help wonder how it will, or will not compare to the Roaring 20’s of the last century. I’m also wondering what this decade will bring, and what it will be known for. As someone who was born in the 60’s, grew up in the 70’s, went to high school in the 80’s, and raised a child in the 90’s, we can clearly distinguish each of those decades, I’m really glad the past 2 awkward decades are now behind us. They were difficult to tag, and we wondered what to call them and were left with the decade of the “O’s” and the decade of “teens” which just didn’t flow well.

It’s now officially been 20 years since we experienced Y2K, the year 2000, the entry into the 21st century. At that time, the news had been reporting that the world we had known, was coming to an end! We heard the reports for months, that the world of technology that we were now living in, was not going to be able to flip over to the new century. It was a year and date formatting glitch. Not sure why they weren’t prepared for this event sooner, because time is a funny thing…we can’t stop it. And because of this glitch, we were going to lose power, gas pumps were not going to be able to pump gas, planes weren’t going to be able to fly, basically anything run by a computer was going to stop working. Scare tactics coming from our t.v.’s every night. But I wasn’t scared, I thought it was exciting! We were at my parents house that New Year’s Eve of 1999 (partying like it was 1999) and we were prepared. We had filled the bathtub with water, in case the power did go out and we had to manually flush the toilets. We had flashlights ready to go. Candles were lit. We had the transistor radio ready. Our car gas tanks had been filled to full. We had plenty of food and drinks. We had lots of firewood for the fireplace to keep us warm, and most importantly, my family was there all together. As the clock struck midnight that night, and we started into our whooping and hollering and celebrating the new year and new century, we also paused for a minute to see if the power would go out. It didn’t. So later we all went to bed, wondering what we would wake up to the next day, maybe the world would end after we went to sleep. But we woke up the next morning, and all was right with the world! We still had power, we could pump gas if needed. Our money was still safe in the bank. The stores were open and we could buy whatever we needed. Thankfully, all the I.T. people across the country and the world, had done a fantastic job of updating all the computers to flip over to the new date!

Little did I know though, that on January 1, 2000, my personal world that I had known up to that point of my 33 years of life, was about to drastically change forever. We didn’t know it that day, but January 1, 2000, was the very last day that we would spend together as a family with my Dad still in it. Because in the early morning hours of January 2, 2000. My Dad was admitted to the hospital with what they first thought was pneumonia. He was actually in congestive heart failure, and he never came home again. Late in the day on January 2nd, he went into respiratory failure and was put on the vent. On January 22nd, my family made the difficult decision to take him off the vent, and he passed away 3 hours later. He was surrounded by his family and I was so glad I was able to be there, holding his hand until the end. I had no idea how quickly his hand would go cold, I had never watched anyone die before. The sorrow and grief I felt at that moment, was nothing like I had ever felt before. He was only 65, and I feel a bit cheated that he was taken from us so soon. It was not expected. So my family’s entry into the 21st century had a really rough start. Unfortunately you can never go back to the way things were before, you can only find a new normal and move forward.

I learned 2 very important life lessons at this time of my life. Never believe everything you hear on the Mainstream Media, their job is to sensationalize the news and to get viewers, no matter the topic. There is no honesty or integrity in journalism anymore, and hasn’t been for a few decades now. It’s all opinion reporting now, I guess that’s more interesting. The second lesson, love your family every day like it may be their last, because you never know when that last day is going to be. Never take their presence for granted. Talk to them, ask them questions, learn from them, listen to their stories. It might not seem important now, but trust me, some day it will be.

From My Corner Of…
Gina