Reflections on a year gone by

Now the blackened ends of fireworks and empty champagne bottles* languish in the bin, along with the sad remnants of the year just gone, I find myself gazing from my window across frosted blades of grass and considering what 2025, like Monty Python's Romans, ever did for us.

On the plus side, an update of my website (kbwillson.com) revealed that writing-wise it wasn't a bad year at all. As well as getting my grief memoir out there, I had five stories published in various anthologies and magazines, as well as being commissioned to write the story of 'The Woodland Ball' for NT Kingston Lacy's Christmas offering. So all things considered this has been my most prolific year yet for getting my writing before the reading public.

I also attended Fairport's Cropredy Convention and World Fantasycon - both of which were excellent - and did the usual smattering of work to keep the wolf from the door. A few trips away with van and dog helped maintain both my equilibrium and my sanity, and my son got married, which was a wonderfully joyous occasion, and brought together many folk who I had not seen for far too long.

On the other side of the coin, of course, is the international situation, which continues to be unstable with wars, skirmishes, greed, self-interested politicians and power-hungry despots proliferating like mould on a week-old loaf. Not to mention the galloping pace of global warming - I accidentally typed 'warning' which on reflection might be more accurate - with 2025 officially the year of hottest average temperature since records began. 

On a personal note, I continue to labour beneath the weight of grief, a burden that I, like so many others, must ultimately carry alone and deal with in our own way, though I find it much easier to talk about the circumstances of my wife's death these days. I even found myself being interviewed about it on local radio (a consequence of having written the book) which is both good for me and important in a wider context... death by suicide is unbelievably widespread and yet the stigma that still surrounds it means that few feel they can discuss it openly. Many have opened up to me since I have 'gone public' - even close friends who have kept their 'secret' for years - which can only be a good thing. Like all taboos, the wall of silence needs to be broken down so that people may understand just how devastating bereavement by suicide is, and in so doing, perhaps prevent some of the thousands of such deaths each year. If even one person can be pulled back from the brink, then our efforts will have proved worthwhile. 

Taking a different tack, though still on this generally melancholy theme, I have to report that 2025 has been a year when a disproportionate amount of friends and colleagues have been diagnosed with cancer, and are now at different stages of their treatment. Some have had the all-clear, some are in the throes of surgery/radiotherapy/chemotherapy, and a couple have, sadly, lost the fight. 

So you'll forgive me if, on balance, I'm not entering the new year in a particularly celebratory mood. 

Yet the world continues to turn and years inexorably pass with their habitual cocktail of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, and we who are powerless try to make what we can of our lives while the four horsemen tighten their cinches and swing into their saddles.

Whatever the new year may hold, I suspect it won't be pretty.

Come on, 2026, prove me wrong... I beg you.

* Note: These images are used here as a graphic shorthand for the turning of the year... rest assured that I had neither!