The road goes ever on and on...




 ...and just like that, another year draws to its close. 

I can scarcely believe that in just a couple of months I will have completed my second year as a widower... a year which, though slightly less emotionally fragile than the last, has nonetheless been jagged with grief. I feel my loss as acutely as ever, though life has expanded around it, subsuming it into the warp and weft of everyday existence. I am working more, I am writing again, I am filling my time with the minutiae of daily life to such an extent that, to the casual observer, I would seem to be little different from the person I was prior to the terrible events of Easter 2023. 

But the casual observer would be wrong. 

If they were only to look a little more closely they would see the continuing sadness behind my eyes, feel the pain of loss that hangs heavy on my heart, and perhaps begin to get some inkling of my daily struggle to keep going.

Reading back my blog from this time last year, I can see that I had little hope either for my own future, or for that of humankind in general, and it saddens me to report that nothing much has changed. The same wars rage, the same levels of wanton destruction continue unabated, and the wholesale massacre of innocent men, women and children seems now so commonplace that it hardly makes the TV news any more, yet we still spend the Christmas season singing of peace on earth and goodwill to all. To misquote (and misinterpret) the Bard: 'What a piece of work is man.' He (and it is almost universally a 'he') really is a piece of work, in the modern usage of that phrase, with his constant justifications and hypocritical pontificating, his blaming anyone and everyone but himself, his complete lack of integrity, and his continual self-aggrandisement. 'Power corrupts,' said Lord Acton back in 1887, 'and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' An observation that is arguably even truer today than it was back then.

In despair for what may lie ahead, I cling to the belief that the world is full of honest, upright, decent people who simply wish to live their lives in peace and security, doing their best for their loved ones and looking to the future with hope. Yet beyond their immediate community they have little ability to control what happens to them, and their lives turn on the whim of those in power. Lord Acton might have hoped that more than a century after his death things would have improved, but as far as politics is concerned, I'm afraid 'twas ever thus...

Returning to the personal (before we slide any further into the Slough of Despond), there have, of course been some aspects of this past year that are worth celebrating. I have become a grandad, which is a joy, and have also reconnected with several people with whom I had all but lost touch, most notably my sister who I joined for a trip to Holland for my nephew's wedding... a lovely experience all round. The Cropredy music festival was as enjoyable as ever, and the carefully chosen pieces of performance work that I have undertaken have brought both pleasure and a boost to the bank balance.

I have had a certain amount of writing success too, with two stories published in anthologies, and another three accepted and due to come out over the next six months; while the book I have been working on detailing my first year of grief (which I had hoped would be out by Christmas) is finally  finished and should be available by Easter.

So am I looking forward to the coming year? On a personal level there are challenges on the horizon, but a sprinkling of joyful occasions too, so yes, I walk into 2025 with cautious optimism, continuing to take one step at a time as the road winds ever onward beneath my feet.

Just don't ask me the same question in relation to the wider world...


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