I feel so alone at this time of year -how can I find a way forward?

DEAR BEL I AM TRULY sorry to burden you with my troubles, however I have no one I can turn to. I am working and living in Pakistan in a remote location. I no longer have contact with my direct family, my wife, my daughters, who are now 16, 16 and eight. Yes, the two eldest are twins.

I feel so alone. Apart from work I feel as though I have nothing left to live for.

My wife and I do not speak and I do not want to speak to her. I cannot write any more. IAN

AFTER nearly 12 years as an advice columnist I have never received a letter so very short, so lacking facts and so overflowing with pain. I pick it with a sense of helplessness — and use your real name (a rare occurrence) because I see no reason not to, and it feels like more of a connection to a desperately lonely man, so far away.

There are many things I’d ask you about your family – principally, how you could fall out so badly with your wife that all communication has broken down and you have lost touch with your children.

There’s an encyclopaedia to learn about this tragedy — especially since I publish your tiny note at the time of year when many people place families centre stage.

It is vital for us all to remember those who are alone, in our own country and around the world, and pause briefly in compassion and fellow feeling — because throwing out ribbons of imagination and empathy to fellow men and women creates a vast, vital, intricate web of humanity.

God knows, it’s the only thing that might save the world from the evil stalking us.

Honestly, I couldn’t go on living without the faith that, even on the last day, someone will hold out a hand to offer help to a stranger.

This is the saving grace, the light in the darkness — and the heart of the message of Christianity, the birth of which is marked tomorrow.

What can I say to you, Ian, on Christmas Eve, to give you the comfort you crave — why else would you have written, if not to hope for some kindness?

It is utterly heart-breaking to realise that you will find it nowhere else. So (aware that all efforts will seem paltry in the face of your lonely despair) my starting point must be to suggest that you tell yourself your life has meaning.

This is a different matter from any considerations of happiness.

Today there is an expectation that we all have a divine right to be happy — the modern obsession.

But I believe we have a serious

duty to make the most of our one, precious life on earth by imbuing that time with real meaningfulness.

This might be hard work, yet we owe it to ourselves — and to the universe — to try. How? By cultivating a mindset which is at once accepting and rebellious.

This involves saying to yourself: ‘My life has made me thoroughly miserable and a lot of this is my own fault.

‘I accept that, but refuse to say it is the end of the matter. I may not be able to be happy, but I can make damn sure I make myself useful — and put myself in charge of the rest of my life, doing what I can to change and create it.’

Imagine you are walking through the desert.

All around sand dunes undulate: beautiful, yet pitiless. You can do nothing to alter that landscape; all you can do is to put one foot in front of the other, plodding towards the little cluster of unfamiliar buildings, the oasis in the distance.

In the cold night sky there is one beautiful, bright star — but as you look up, you notice the sky is actually full of stars you can’t name, twinkling at you with silent music.

So much beauty! As you notice it something lightens within you, giving you strength to believe there’ll be something or somebody new ahead, which may change your life. But only if you are determined to get there.

And that’s all any of us can do — walk on, until we can walk no more. So far, you and Love have failed each other, but that doesn’t mean there will be no more love in the future.

Maybe you won’t have to stay where you are, but can (in time) find different work which puts you in touch with kindred souls.

With luck and determination (I pray) you may be reconciled with your children and make up for the lost years.

Nothing lasts for ever: even the sands of the desert shift and move and the light from the stars has changed on its vast journey towards us.

So I say, look within yourself and find what all of us are born to — the knowledge that you, too, are a unique star in the terrifying vastness of space. You matter.

What’s more, your light is still reaching the three children who may one day want to know you — so please remember that shining word ... hope.