Dear 2016,
Pack your bags; we’re done. It was one disappointment after another with you.
Just how bad were you? Let us count the ways.
You just took and took and took, 2016
You took Prince, Bowie, Cohen.
You took Pat Conroy and Harper Lee. Muhammed Ali and Arnold Palmer.
You took Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher.
John Glenn lived enough life for three people as a history-making astronaut, presidential candidate and US senator. You took him, too.
No matter what your politics, you can’t deny that Antonin Scalia, Tom Hayden, Janet Reno and Nancy Reagan made a difference in their lifetimes.
They’re all gone, too, because of you.
2016, you unleashed hell
The numbers are just mind-boggling:
More than 80 in the Nice truck attack.
44 dead in the Istanbul airport blast.
32 in the Brussels bombings.
49 in Orlando, in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
Cops shot and killed black men in Louisiana and Minnesota. A sniper killed five Dallas officers, thedeadliest single incident fatality for US law enforcement since 9/11.
And the bloody, brutal Syrian civil war just dragged on. Those who were able to flee risked death in the Mediterranean’s unforgiving waters, where more people died this year than ever.
You dished out a lot of misery
It’s impossible to candy-coat it, 2016. When it came to misery, you went full-throttle.
You forced thousands from their homes with historic flooding in Europe, in North Korea and in Louisiana, the worst in the United States since Hurricane Sandy.
You created Haiti’s worst humanitarian crisis this decade with Hurricane Matthew. And Ecuador still hasn’t recovered from the quake in April that killed more than 600.
You brought trouble to the skies, too.
In May, everyone aboard an EgyptAir plane died when it crashed into the Mediterranean. We still don’t know why.
In November, a jet carrying a Brazilian soccer team crashed in Colombia, killing 71.
As if all that isn’t enough, you broke the record for the hottest months ever.
You tore us apart, 2016
We’re glad the elections are over, but the wounds you inflicted will take a long time to heal.
Republican Donald Trump won the Electoral College and the White House. Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. And America’s torn in half and uncertain of the path ahead. Britain’s no better with Brexit.
And let’s not forget what you wrought: an embarrassing FAIL for polls, and when fake news got into it with truth.
But hey 2016, we’ll give you this
You get props for getting some things right, like the brightest supermoon since 1948. The first Word Series win for the Cubs in 108 years. And you did a solid for the McDonald family, whose conjoined twins were successfully separated after a 27-hour surgery.
More big stories from 2016 ...
You gave us some much-needed laughter from Chewbacca Mom and two joyful weeks of Olympic thrills, including the US “Final Five” gymnasts.
Oh, and during your watch, the US unemployment rate sank to 4.6%, the lowest in 10 years.
So yeah, you were better than, say, the year the bubonic plague took hold in Europe, eventually killing a third of the population. But that was 1348.
You couldn’t go quietly, could ya, 2016? You were mean until the end. A man who pledged allegiance to ISIS plowed a truck through a crowded Berlin Christmas market, killing 12.
The best part of you, 2016, is December 31 — the day you slink out of town.
Let’s hope 2017 is as good as you were bad.
Sincerely,
The world.