My neighbour was convulsed by a sob. “Such a beautiful creature ? and only fit to be buried.”

I thought of her forebears: generations of women in rural Ireland, some of them still living, who gave birth to still-born children because they didn’t have access to the medical services they required. Their babies were taken away in the dead of night to be buried by the men in unconsecrated ground: secret little graves, soon overgrown and forgotten.

I imagined the depth of those mothers’ grief, the searing pain of loss; a nameless tragedy shared by no one. “Such beautiful creatures ? and only fit to be buried.”

And I wondered, would those women have wept over a calf 

The closest I have ever come to the mystery of life: a Premature Baby Unit. Watching a tiny scrap of life in intensive care struggling in agony for each breath.

Twice already he has given up and had to be resuscitated. The staff say they can do no more. The rest is up to him.

Twelve hours ago he was safe from harm. Comfortable, secure, in the warm embrace of his mother’s womb. This is what he got instead. He is alone. A sign says ‘No Touching’. Each part of him is either punctured by a needle or attached to an instrument. Only his suffering cannot be treated.

“Why would he want to live ” I say to the nurse. “What attraction could life hold out to him ” She smiles. “He’s getting the best possible start. From his point of view, things can only get better.”

At that moment, the sun rises: a big orange on the winter horizon. A ray of hope falls on my newborn son, and suddenly, his breathing seems less laboured.

By the end of the day, he is out of danger, sleeping for the first time peacefully. Dreaming, it appears ? of what  Laughing out loud ? why 

In the short time he’s been with us, he’s known nothing but pain. Yet some secret memory is keeping him amused; giving him the courage to take on this life, knowing the suffering it contains.

So ? life is a journey, a hazardous voyage of discovery; and we must negotiate our passage past adversity and trauma, undaunted like a stream rippled by jagged rocks on its steady descent to the sea.

But it’s easy to lose heart; especially when you are caught in the bewildering limbo between the death of the old and the birth of the new.

That’s when we have to remember Phoenix, who rose, time and again, from the ashes of the past. Take comfort from the knowledge that we have bypassed the greatest peril of all: that of stagnation.

The ancients looked on each crisis as a blessing: a liberation, the enforced breaking of new ground. Favourable to them was anything that helped our progress from darkness to light.

There are even those who claim that extraordinary afflictions are not the punishment for extraordinary sins but the trial of extraordinary graces bestowed on a favoured few.

Looking back, you may well agree that some of your worst experiences did in fact carry within them the seed of something good.

Relish the shadows you leave behind. They add depth and definition. For expansion, though, look forward: into the dazzling new dimension of the unknown.

You’ll see that there are no endings in life. Only beginnings.