I have always known how locations and special places can make you feel so restful, refreshed and happier. We have so many friends who go skiing lots and tell us that the mountain air helps to ground them, to revive them. I’m yet to go skiing but I can just imagine the truth in their words.

Two weeks after we lost Selah, our landlord called and told us that she was selling up and that we needed to move out – it was a huge kick in the teeth, as I’m sure you can imagine. We lost everything! Two short weeks after the worst tragedy, we were now facing packing everything up and leaving the home we had nested in and prepared for our sweet girls arrival. The fear, the increased amount of grief and anger was too much to bear. We were in a desperate state. We had friends who pulled money together to plan a trip to California for us, for a month, which was a trip where healing really began to happen. We Stayed with some of our greatest friends, splashed out on incredible expensive meals in San Franciscos’ famous rooftop bars and restaurants, learnt how to swing dance, walked up snowy mountains in North California, celebrated Thanksgiving with best friends, the list goes on! We had moved in with my wonderful parents upon our return from Cali and it was such a beautiful time of rest and continued healing spent with them, especially over our first Christmas after losing Selah.

It was in all of these sweet moments that we realised for certain, that when we returned to England, it was time to move elsewhere in the country. We had known that Northampton wasn’t going to be where we settled long term when we arrived home from living in the States for 3 years, in 2016 and now, with everything that had happened, it felt like the right time – not to escape but to give ourselves a fresh start.

At the end of January 2018, we moved to West Sussex. Some dear friends who live down here pretty much made it happen – another long story for another time! We packed our little Ford Fiesta  and a large moving truck and brought everything we owned here and began a new chapter here, in the beauty that is West Sussex.

I was still on maternity leave and Luke was on long-term bereavement leave at this point, so we had a few months to walk the South Downs, go for runs along the sea front, explore and find new coffee spots (!!) meet new friends and spend a lot of time together, grieving, healing and discovering what life now looked like after such loss.

Let’s go back to my first words of this blog,

‘I have always known how locations and special places can make you feel so restful, refreshed and happier.’ 

Our new home, West Sussex has become a place that has not only made us feel restful, refreshed and happier but this place has truly healed us. It’s become a haven for us, a place where we learnt to breathe again, where we have learnt to be still and heal in any storm that life throws at you and where we have truly found our tribe. Our community of friends, who have become family, down here have been the biggest part of our healing in many many beautiful ways. We have cried so many tears, shouted many angry words yet laughed a LOT, on top of Chanctonbury Ring, on the beautiful beaches and in the beautiful National Trust woodland that surrounds us (!!) but this place has become home. It’s become the place where we’ve felt the safest to be ourselves and to process the last 18months. It’s been a DREAM to call this place home.

After you lose a child, I believe us parents grieve all the fun things you had planned to do with your child. We’re forever sitting on the beach, dipping our feet in the ocean and saying, ‘imagine Selah in her little beachwear, feeling the water on her feet for the first time’, ‘imagine Selah running through the leaves in these woods’ etc. She would have LOVED exploring all these places with us. This is a painful reality of our lives now BUT, we look forward to the days ahead of making these memories with Selah’s siblings and we just know that every time we walk through the beautiful woods, climb the hills and walk along the South Downs and visit the gorgeous beaches, we’ll always be able to include Selah and remember her when we’re exploring our favourite places the places that have been where we’ve experienced healing and wholeness again.

Claire xo