Will a better year finally hop in?

ON Jan 22, the Lunar New Year of the Water Rabbit will begin. It would have been my late father’s year if he were still with us. He would be a 96-year-old rabbit person. Slowed by age and illnesses, he wouldn’t be as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the animal but he did have many of its qualities and characteristics.

I grew up in a noisy household of people born in the Years of the Dragon, Dog, Horse, Snake, Goat, Monkey and Pig (that’s me), and it amused us kids that Dad was the shy and timid Rabbit, which seemed incongruous with his role as the head of the family.