2020 has been an unusual year, but, I guess that’s putting it mildly. For most people (globally), it’s been a pretty shitty year. Well, therein lies the conundrum for me. 2020 has actually been the best year of my life, ever. To start, and without a doubt the most important thing to happen to me this year was the birth of my son. I mean, wow, what a blessing he has been in my life, in OUR life.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”. I came across that phrase from Charles Dickins’ 1859 historical novel, when it was used by a good friend of mine, Andre Burnett, in an article a few years ago. I believe that the aforementioned phrase aptly describes 2020. For while I celebrate the birth of my son, I also mourn the death of a good friend; all while in the middle of a global pandemic. I mean, that’s a lot of emotions to process, to say the least.

In all of this, in all this chaos, in all this despair, I celebrate the life of a friend, a fellow entrepreneur, a father and a husband. Andre (Dre), I miss you.

For my company, EduFocal, it truly has been a groundbreaking year for us, truly, our best year ever. From private equity investment from one of our largest brokers locally, being able to grant free access to our platform to more than 60,000 students because of the support of corporate partners when traditional schooling was interrupted, to creating opportunities for many people in the middle of a pandemic, I am truly humbled by all of the opportunities we’ve received.

Becoming 30 is a milestone, and while I would have loved to have a big party with friends and family to celebrate this milestone year, I am always comforted that my circle of support is big; BIG, BIG, BIG! Starting with my head cheerleader, my beautiful wife, Kemesha Swaby, my parents, my siblings and my friends, thank you, thank you for lifting me up, cheering me on and providing support when I needed it. Thank you to the EduFocal team, an amazing team, who truly ignored the noise, focused and executed in an unbelievably challenging year.

I’ve never spoken about this before, but 3 years ago I created the first page of a prospectus, framed it with a listing date of October 16, 2020 and placed it in our bedroom. Little did I know at the time that while 2020 would be our best year ever, it would also be the year of a global pandemic. While our IPO hasn’t happened this year, it is within sight and will happen when the timing is right.

To my son…

Writing this annual blog post has become more meaningful to me because I know that one day you’ll be able to visit my blog and appreciate the growth of your father, from as early as 16 years old!

With the support of your ‘Mama Turtle’, I know that you’ll be a smarter, kinder and more empathetic human being than I could ever be. I know that you will learn from my mistakes and benefit from my successes. As I write this, you’re a little over 3 months old and my greatest blessing is to wake each day to see how happy and cheerful you are about life. My son, I need no greater motivation. When I chose to marry your mom, I knew that she’d not only make a great wife, but also a great mother. Turns out, I was right. I’ve seen how caring, patient and thoughtful she is with your intellectual, spiritual and physical growth. It is a blessing and a privilege to have you both in my life.

To my Wife…

I promise to always protect, provide and be the priest of our family. Thank you for being patient with me, thank you for praying for me, thank you for taking care of me, thank you for taking care of us.

In a few days we’ll celebrate our first year of marriage. Some marriages didn’t survive this pandemic, but ours has; in fact, it has become stronger. Thank you for carrying our child for all of 9 months. If I could, I would have helped to carry him too.

As I said in my note to you on the day I proposed, choosing to marry you wasn’t a hard decision to make, but I had to make myself ready to permanently stand with such a strong, phenomenal woman in my life to continue to grow with, learn from and love selflessly. When love is not enough, everything else is.

As our trainer regularly says, “There’s nothing challenging happening in our lives that we can’t handle.” As we close in on 1 year of marriage, I promise to stay faithful to you, I promise to protect you and our son, and I promise to do my best to aid in your growth.

I ended my “On becoming 29” blog post by saying that I wanted to act as an enabler of people. I wanted to create pathways and ongoing opportunities for growth. While 2020 didn’t go exactly as planned, I’m happy with what I’ve been able to achieve this year, despite all the craziness that has happened around us.

To all the people in my circle, thank you for being on this journey with me, thank you for trusting me. I hope that we can go into 2021 stronger with renewed hope and optimism for the future.

Here’s to a milestone year and continued growth. Here’s to 30.

Originally published on gordonswaby.com on 2020-11-18 (recovered from the Internet Archive).