A Season of Loss

 I feel like I am living through a season of loss. 

Our first grandchild was due to be born last summer but very sadly, my son and his partner lost baby Lily, at 8 months after a stillbirth. They are still struggling to come to terms with their loss, anxious about future births and unable to see young children or babies yet. 

However, we have prayed for them to get married. My youngest son, a Christian, got married to his wife, Kelsey, an American, four years ago in Ohio in the US. It was a great occasion, a big American celebration as they were married by her father, a minister. The good news is that our eldest son and his Portuguese partner have also decided to get married before having any other children. A cause to celebrate, yes. But still feeling rather scarred and not being believers, they have opted not only for a registry office wedding, which would have been fine with us, but a private one. That is to say, just the two of them and two friends as witnesses, no family. As a compromise they are having a weekend honeymoon here in the Cotswolds near us. A small family meal and celebration. There will be no bigger celebration, no ceremony to remember. 

What has all this to do with writing you may ask? I feel a sense of loss with my writing too. Four years since the publication of my second book, Waireka, I have rescinded the contract with my publishers, who after selling me 200 books did nothing further to promote or sell more than about a dozen copies. My experience of publishers has been less than positive, self-publishing my first book, Alpha Male, even after winning a competition to get it published, but that's another story. 

I am currently involved in editing a tribute book for a remarkable Ethiopian 'Mother Teresa' figure who helped to improve the lot of many of the poorest people in her country. I am simply editing and arranging her writings which is a real privilege. 

Monica Ali

Will I write anything else of my own? I don't know at the moment. You might call it 'writer's block' or to quote the words of Monica Ali in 2011, "It felt too hard to write...It was the only thing I knew how to do and yet I didn't have the confidence to keep doing it." Amazing really for someone whose debut novel 'Brick Lane' had been called a literary phenomenon and secured a two-book deal! Yet this year she has written her first book for a decade, 'Love Marriage' after several unsuccessful novels, so I will never say never...

I would like to finish on a positive note though. I think the words of Habakkuk sum up my feelings perfectly and centre me/us back on God.

"Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour." (Habakkuk 3 verse 17)

Words that have meaning for me as a farmer's daughter.

Sheila Johnson lives in Cheltenham and is a qualified journalist who has written for a number of publications both local and national. She has also written two books under her pen name Sheila Donald, Alpha Male and Waireka. Her website can be found at www.journojohnson.com