Hello,
This week I have been in mourning, more so than I had anticipated after all this time, and yet it is fitting, given the topic of grief, which we will gather around next month in our second Coaching Short. After nearly 15 years of speaking relatively little about this immense experience, I realise that this part of my grief story does need to be shared and witnessed. It is the act of sharing and witnessing that will help me transition into the next chapter, knowing I am held by my family, friends and community as I bring her home.
It's currently half-term holidays, and I arrived in France on Sunday only to wake with a burning temperature and a deep chest infection. In Chinese Medicine it is believed the organ associated with grief is our lungs.
We are here to pack down our home, which we have been ridiculously blessed to have for the last fifteen years. It's in this house and in this beauteous region of France that my first-born daughter was born and died. Her name is Éloïse, and her ashes were offered to the alpine stream that flows right alongside the house into Lake Annecy - Lac d'Annecy.
Here, her cremated flesh and bones are at one with the crystalline clear turquoise waters of this freshwater lake. It has comforted me to know that she is forever part of this pristine water source, but I hadn't fully realised just how much this place and space had been keeping her alive for me.
Embodied, she thrives in the thunderous flow of this stream, sleeps in the stillness of the lake and is contained by these walls. She has been the rightful soul-guardian of this home.
So whilst I know it is time to move on, today it feels very painful. Her dying here soon after we arrived, meant that we never managed to live here as fully as we'd once planned. In truth, much about this place ended up not as I had expected, and yet I love it for all that it gave us - the happy moments we still managed to have over the years, despite everything.
As I cleared out the last cupboard, I found carefully folded, the red and white dress that I wore to the hospital. Light and airy in the hot June sunshine, it proudly covered my bump as we departed for my scan. Eloise's movements had changed, and the doctor we'd spoken to on the phone had said it sounded like I was having contractions. I was 8 months pregnant and therefore it was advisable to get this checked out immediately.
Not one bit of me expected to see a lifeless baby.
Surely, there was a mistake; I couldn't make sense of the image. Perhaps this still mound in the base of my tummy meant that she was sleeping.
"Elle est née sans vie," he said.
The piercing cry I longed to hear from her never came. Instead, it was my own that flooded the corridors of Metz Tessy Hospital.
Eloise was indeed 'born without life', a stillborn baby girl.
Finding that dress after all these years took me right back to that moment, and I don't know for how long I buried my face into the fabric. I have packed it away safely now, unable to pass it on just yet.
It is set aside with the box we found containing mementos and commemorative items: letters to her from us, her photos, hand and footprints, her baby bracelet, her death and cremation certificate and cremation stone. Tomorrow I hope to create a ritual for us to honour her and this place, as we say our last goodbyes.
She would have been 14 on June 7th, and so as I do every year, I will also mark her birthday. This little girl cracked me wide open and initiated a path of such deep transformation in my life, that however painful, I can only thank her for the profound gifts she gave me in our brief time together. She led me to what really matters.
Of course, as I work through the materials for the upcoming 'Grief Reflections', it is right that I am again so alive to the feelings and teachings of this griefful experience that changed the course of my life forever.
For those reading this, may all the parts of your heart that you hold tightly receive the care and tenderness they need at this time. And if something in these words touches a place in you, an old grief or sorrow that hasn't had the time or space it requires, then you might want to try sharing it too.
A sorrow yet to be voiced, a yearning yet to be heard. Even if it's just with yourself. Even if it's just one sentence. Grief asks to be witnessed, not fixed; and I have come to learn that sorrow, when shared, becomes sanctuary. I'll be exploring more of this in The Grief Reflections. If you feel called, there's a place for you there. It's never too late to offer your pain a place at the table. So if you are able, let it be seen - we are not supposed to do this alone.
Love,
Remi
Founder and CEO (Chief Esoteric Officer)
