…. I am exceedingly fortunate in that I have my work, my writing, a creative exercise to help me through my troubled times. I had several miscarriages. I lost each conceived child before I learnt that it was unlikely I could carry a child full-term. This news was a great blow, as it would be to any hopeful parent. 

 

For a while I went into a black hole, judging myself a lesser human being. Somehow, I was inadequate. It did not occur to me at that time of deep depression that there were other routes, other forms of birth awaiting me. As I said, I found great solace in writing THE OLIVE SEASON which recounts the loss of my last miscarried child - a little girl. Writing and then talking publicly about this loss helped me enormously. I received hundreds of letters from others - men and women, mothers and fathers - who had experienced the same or similar losses.

 

Nature healed me. I put my faith in the regenerative power of healing and rebirth. We own an old live farm in the south of France and here I found a way through my grief. I planted and gave back to Nature a little of the joy I had found on this land. In the years that followed I began to find peace and then joy in the growth of the plants, in the beauty of the flowers. Life springing forth in all its colours and varieties. 

 

Yes, there are days, some twenty years on, when I ask myself what my relationship today would be with my little girl, how she might have grown, what she would be doing with her life now. Most days I feel calmed, knowing that her spirit exists somewhere and will find its own journey. As I have found mine. Perhaps if I had been fortunate enough to give birth to my children I would never have found the time to write, to become an environmentalist, to fight for the safekeeping of bees and
all the other passions that richly enhance my life.

 

I do not pretend to be able to offer others advice. I only know that to shift my creative and nurturing energies to other focuses
healed me.

 

God’s healing works in extraordinary ways.