She Would Have Been 14: On Éloïse, Grief and the Great Waters of Annecy

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.