Introduction

On 11 March 2020, during the first national day of tribute to the victims of terrorism, the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron announced the creation of a Memorial Museum of Terrorism in Suresnes, in the immediate proximity of the historically laden ‘Memorial to Fighting France’ dedicated to the French fighters in the Second World War. Both the symbolic location of the future memorial site and the political will to ‘pass on to future generations the recognition of the victims of terrorism’Footnote 1 point to the desire to create a place that evokes national resilience and resistance in the face of extremist threats (L’Élysée, 2021). The project for the Memorial Museum is only one example of the numerous commemorative practices that have emerged after the two deadliest terrorist attacks committed in France in the new millennium—the 13 November 2015 simultaneous Paris attacks and the 14 July 2016 lorry ramming attack in Nice. Spontaneous grassroots memorials and survivor groups’ campaigns have eventually led to the installation of memorial plaques at the site of each targeted venue in Paris, a project for a memorial garden in tribute to the victims that will come into effect in 2025 (LANDEZINE, 2022) in the French capital as well as a permanent memorial on the Promenade des Anglais six year after the terrorist attack (RFI, 2022).

While the role of permanent memorials and public forms of memorialisation in mediating death and shaping communal experiences of loss on a societal level has attracted significant scholarly attention (Davies, 1993; King, 1998; Winter, 1995, 1998; Young, 1994, 2000), individual memory-making commitments and affective practices of remembrance in the aftermath of terrorist violence have often remained in the shadow of grand commemorations (Allen & Brown, 2011). Only few studies have considered the impact of public memorials on advancing individual recovery and the role of memorialisation in channelling collective emotions in reaction to traumatic events (see Milošević, 2017). Moreover, little attention has been paid to the role that affect-laden forms of memorialisation play in supporting bereaved families in finding meaning in their experiences of loss and coming to terms with grief. Drawing on in-depth interviews with bereaved parents in the aftermath of terrorism in France, this chapter aims to expand our understanding of the role of memory-making activities and living memorials in giving a deceased loved one a place in the hearts and on-going lives of the living. The chapter will argue that, in contrast to permanent memorials whose unveiling could be experienced as a symbolic ‘ceremony of separation’ with the deceased (Attig, 2002: 103), living memorials hold an inexhaustible capacity for memory.

While for much of the twentieth century, therapeutic discourses have considered attempts to continue bonds with the deceased an indicator of pathology in grief, Klass et al. (1996) study has offered new understandings of grief. They demonstrate that by finding places for the dead in their on-going lives, bereaved individuals can rebuild their lives in a healthy way. There has also been an increasing interest in the social and cultural diversity in grieving and remembrance, such as fostering links with the deceased that hold a variety of personal meanings (Bradbury, 2001; Valentine, 2008), which challenges the dominant therapeutic model of ‘severing ties’ (Freud, 1917). For instance, Allen and Brown’s (2011) qualitative study of the commemorative practices after the 2005 London bombings presents an embodied form of remembrance, which they coin a ‘living memorial’. They follow Esther Hyman, who dedicated herself to continuing the memory of her sister Miriam, a victim of the 7/7 attacks, by founding a charitable foundation in her name. By emphasising the embodied acts of caring in enacting remembrance and commemoration of the lost loved one, Allen and Brown (2011) demonstrate how living memorials allow for the loving give-and-take to continue after the death and thus represent a lasting source of bonding with the deceased.

Drawing on Klass et al. (1996) insight into the role of continuing bonds in the grief process and Allen and Brown’s (2011) concept of living memorials which enact commemoration through affective labour, this chapter will offer a phenomenological analysis of the meaning that diverse memory-making commitments hold for bereaved parents in the aftermath of terrorist violence and loss. The study also aims to expand upon the lived experience of grieving and explore how ‘living’ forms of memorialisation challenge what is commonly understood as commemoration. A novel focus on the affective could change how we think of inert memorials, such as memorial plaques and even gravesites, and challenge the traditional scholarly view of the solace and reconciliation they offer in the aftermath of violent loss.

Based on semi-structured interviews with two parents—Stéphane Sarrade and Anne Murris—who lost a child in the 13 November 2015 Paris attacks and the 14 July 2016 Nice attack respectively, the chapter will analyse how bereaved individuals find value and meaning in such embodied and affective practices of remembrance. Following Allen and Brown (2011), the chapter promotes a broader understanding of memorialisation than a memorial space or a gravesite and stresses the embodied and relational dimension of keeping memory alive. The memory-making activities and living memorials in focus in this chapter differ in form, time of occurrence, and meaning attributed to them. However, similarities emerge in the affective function of those living memorials and their role in continuing bonds in light of the loss of a child. By outlining the ways in which living memorials differ from grand state or communal projects for commemorating victims of terrorism, the chapter will argue that affective memory-making labour does not only contribute to the enduring remembrance of the lost loved one, but also presents a way of continuing bonds with the deceased as part of the individual grief process.

Affective Remembrance and Continuing Bonds with the Deceased

The experience of losing a family member as a result of terrorist violence represents a watershed moment for individuals and bereaved parents in particular, as forgetting often proves to be impossible and their lives are irreversibly split into ‘before’ and ‘after’. The traumatic loss of a child is also characterised by a perception that one has lost control over the trajectory of one’s life, while feelings of helplessness, passivity, and heightened anxiety overwhelm the bereaved individual (Attig, 1991: 386). The loss and traumatic damage caused by the attack cannot be encapsulated, nor can life go on as usual. The choicelessness of death and bereavement triggers feelings that the world is beyond one’s control, and the bereaved often experience themselves as powerless in the face of the unravelling of major life events following their loss (Tennen and Affleck 1990, cit. in Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995: 17). The impossibility to reverse such events or change their consequences has the potential to trigger a complicated grief, which consumes the bereaved person’s whole life and being and, as a result, could negatively impact their psychological well-being and social role (Altmaier, 2011).

Death, especially when caused by violence which the bereaved experience as senseless, has a profound impact on meanings as parents are suddenly faced with the violent rupture of an intimate connection, the traumatic renouncement of unfulfilled hopes for their children, and the painful ‘what if’ that is integral to untimely death. In such instances, grief could be particularly challenging and protracted as it ‘opens all parent meanings to question’ (Rubin 1993, cit. in Rosenblatt, 2000: 187). Parents may be faced with a crisis of meaning and begin to question their place in the social and professional world, the meaning of everyday activities, and even their capacity to simply wake up and be productive and capable of caring for others (Rosenblatt, 2000: 187). Neimeyer (1998: 83) argues that the attempt to reconstruct a world of meaning is central to the experience of grieving. This view aligns with Gilbert’s (1997: 103) claim that coming to terms with grief and finding a resolution is intertwined with attributing meaning to loss. However, when the death of a loved one is sudden and violent, attempts to make sense of the loss might often be unsuccessful and protracted (Currier et al., 2006). Moreover, expressing feelings and finding the right words to describe one’s emotions in the immediate aftermath of trauma might be particularly challenging as bereaved individuals tend to feel distant, numb, and severed from reality in the early stages of mourning (Schick, 2011: 1848). Finding a creative, non-verbal expression of these feelings could thus be particularly helpful in those moments as a way to counteract the silence and isolation of the experience.

Traumatic loss and subsequent denial can trigger an urge for creativity and a search for ways to recreate the lost loved one. Creativity, as embodied by diverse commitments to remember and pay tribute to victims, is often used by survivors as a form of an inner struggle for mastery over grief-ridden trauma. In addition, creative memory-making activities do not only hold the potential to bear witness to loss, but also affirm the enduring meanings of the lost loved one’s legacy in the on-going lives of the living (Attig, 2002: 28). The creativity deriving from loss could be appreciated as an investment of life with meaning and purpose, which affectively embodies the memory of the lost one. Allen and Brown (2011) have coined the concept of ‘living memorials’ to designate creative memory-making commitments of survivors and bereaved families in the aftermath of extremist violence. These differ from conventional inert memorials in their affective function of weaving ‘thick relations of care and emotion’ with the lost one at the level of life rather than that of symbolic commemoration (Allen & Brown, 2011: 312). Examples of such memory-making commitments that commemorate the life of the lost ones, instead of commemorating their death, can be founding an educational bursary, getting a memorial tattoo, or dedicating oneself to charitable projects that recall the personality and legacy of the deceased. The affect, care, and emotions imbued in living memorials constitute an affective labour which underpins the continuing relationship with the intimate one lost to terrorism (Allen & Brown, 2011: 325). Unlike passively experienced violent loss and traumatic recollections, a living memorial requires an active engagement, a self-commitment, and a socially engaged agent who makes active choices in the goal of keeping the memory of a lost loved one alive. Allen and Brown (2011: 316) thus refer to the affective labour of remembrance as a ‘felt relation’ which links past and present and transforms memories into ‘an ongoing, living project’. As a result, the care labour of the bereaved individual is transformed into a medium which enduringly commemorates the deceased.

The act of memorialisation is also thought and felt as a way of caregiving and preserving a connection with the dead through the active commitment to their memory and keeping it alive. The enactment of commemoration through a living memorial thus not only aims to preserve the memory of the lost one, but also the very embodied relations with the one being remembered. The most significant feature of living memorials is therefore their capacity to draw tangible links between lives and bodies and to affectively connect victims and others who, despite the fact that they might be strangers, will continue in some way what the deceased are no longer able to. As a result, the embodied act of remembrance envisions both a commemoration of the dead and a possible transformation of the lives of the living (Allen & Brown, 2011: 319). The relationship between remembering and caring at the heart of living memorials makes the two purposes overlap and emerge in a single, transformational one. In those lines, the living memorial does not merely preserve the legacy of the deceased, but also symbolically prolongs and expands it beyond the life-death boundary (Allen & Brown, 2011: 323–324).

By contrast, psychological models of grief have emphasised the importance of acknowledging and facing the loss as a prerequisite for coming to terms with trauma and moving on in life (Bowlby, 1980; Freud, 1917; Worden, 1991). For the majority of the twentieth century, it has been considered that achieving an emotional detachment from the dead person—by allocating them a place within one’s biography in the form of memory—would allow the bereaved individual to ‘resolve’ grief, move on to the present and envision a future again (Howarth, 2000: 127). Freud’s (1917) view of mourning as a precise psychical task requiring the bereaved individual to detach themselves from hopes and memories they used to hold for the dead, however, has been challenged by Klass et al. (1996) cross-population study. They made the impactful argument that mourning could be achieved when the bereaved develop ‘continuing bonds’ with the deceased (Klass et al., 1996). Their study has thus come to replace the previously dominant model of grief in the academic discourse of ‘severing ties’ (Freud, 1917) with the lost one as a condition for the bereaved individual’s ability to reinvest themselves in new attachments. Howarth (2000) builds upon the insight of ‘continuing bonds’ (Klass et al., 1996) with the aim of revising what is commonly understood as ‘the boundaries between the living and the dead’ and (re)introducing a more fluid perception of the diverse forms of remembering to which bereaved individuals turn as a way of integrating the lost loved ones into their lives.

While contesting the marginalisation of continuing relationships between bereaved individuals and their deceased relatives by discourses and practices of modernity, Valentine’s (2008) study of 25 bereaved individuals and their narratives of grief points out the complex nature of human attachments which may continue in the aftermath of loss. Her study makes the compelling argument that ‘letting go’ and ‘keeping hold’ of the deceased person are not necessarily mutually exclusive (Valentine, 2008). Valentine’s (2008: 162) work also illustrates how attempts by bereaved individuals to continue bonds with the deceased testify not only to an enduring personal attachment to the lost loved one, but also to profound, far-reaching, and complex social events that allow memory to acquire a new, independent meaning. Reflecting on the complexities and tensions inherent to grief, Worden (1991: 51) stresses the need for different individuals to follow a distinct path in their grieving process in order to be able to find an emotional place for the deceased in their lives. Instead of relinquishing the relationship with the dead, the bereaved individual should be encouraged to find an emotional place for the deceased in their life in a manner which does not preclude them from new emotional investments. In light of the challenges to the dominant psychological discourse wherein ‘grief work’ requires the severing of ties with the deceased, Worden (2008) refines his notorious ‘tasks of mourning’. The latest edition of his book prescribes that in order for the bereaved to complete the mourning process, they should pass through the stages of acknowledging the reality of loss, work through the pain of grief and consequently find an enduring connection with the deceased in the midst of embarking on a new life (Worden, 2008: 50).

Bereavement Through a Phenomenological Lens

This chapter, then, offers an interpretive phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of two parents who have lost a child in a terrorist attack to provide an in-depth understanding of how the bereaved reflect upon their loss, grief, and the contingent nature of their post-attack worlds. The choice to focus in particular on those two interviewees has been inspired by their lasting commitment to transforming the physical absence of their children into an enduring connection with them by reinscribing the legacy of their lives into a living memorial. In addition, what is of particular interest for the purposes of this chapter is the parental commitment to keeping the memory of the deceased alive, which has not only transformed the way they deal with the pain and anguish of bereavement but also their post-attack world, by ‘bestowing’ on them a new mission that they ‘inherit’ from the deceased. The search for meaning and the importance that bereaved individuals attribute to different forms of remembrance and commemoration will be discussed in light of their experiential significance for the individuals.

The choice of method is underpinned by the phenomenological belief that we can best understand human beings from the experiential reality of their lifeworlds (van Manen, 1997: xi). By using experience as a starting point, the phenomenological study aims to acquire an understanding of the bereaved parents’ lived experience of loss and subsequent commitment to keeping memory alive. My research involves a close analysis of the parents’ bereavement narratives, produced during interviews (conducted online and in person) and our sustained contact over time. Simultaneously, I am aware that the words spoken during the interview encounters, follow-up email exchanges, and in-person meetings can never fully convey the actual sensibility of the lived experiences of loss, and that those reflections on lived experiences are always recollective (van Manen, 1997: 10). The method’s distinct perspective towards experience and language thus revolves around the nature of bereavement ‘not as a problem to be solved but as a question of meaning to inquire into’ (van Manen, 1997: 36). It aims to offer a textual expression of the contingency of bereavement and its impact upon parents.

The qualitative, open-ended interviewing thus produced highly personalised narratives of finding oneself at loss of meaning after the death of a significant person, facing protracted grief and waking up to a commitment to continue bonds with the deceased child through memory-making activities. The phenomenological approach also allowed research participants to move backwards and forwards between the traumatic experience of the past and the continued battles and commitments in the present, in a manner which offers insight into the depth of human experiences of a challenging nature. During a fieldwork trip to Nice in November 2021, I had the chance to recontact Stéphane by email and to meet Anne in person. The renewed contact provided me with an insight into their immediate responses to the challenging task of preparing to testify at the historical trials in the Palace of Justice in Paris and recalling the memory of their deceased child while facing the accused in the dock.

The cyclical process of re-reading and re-thinking the interviews and ethnographic data during the data analysis aligns with the ontological assertions of the study; that lived experiences are highly subjective and that the interpretive understanding of phenomena is theoretically infinite (van Manen, 1997). The choice of an interpretive phenomenological analysis is also underpinned by my intention to highlight and critically engage with the challenges of intersubjective understanding in emotionally charged research encounters, instead of dismissing affective recollections, silences, and trauma-induced repetitions as unscientific. I therefore consider my active presence and subjectivity not as a hindrance, but as a means through which to engage with the experiential lifeworlds of research participants through empathy and to offer them a space to remember their child (Howarth, 1998: 4). Moreover, the process of contacting, interviewing, and re-encountering Stéphane Sarrade and Anne Murris during my data collection in France confirmed for me the importance bereaved parents attribute to talking about the life and memory of the deceased person as a way of regaining a sense of the child’s tangible and active presence in their lives (Walter, 1996: 12–15).

Searching for Meaning in the Aftermath of a Violent Loss

Meaning is an inextricable part of people’s life and sense of purpose, and yet profoundly traumatic events can cause the shattering of individuals’ sense of control, purpose, and connection to the outside world. When senseless violence causes a loved one’s death, bereaved individuals often feel that the violent blow has stripped life’s meaning and purpose away from them, along with their perception of safety and security. This is particularly relevant in the cases of bereaved parents who have suddenly been confronted not only with the shock of a violent loss and the resulting trauma, but also with the loss of private hopes and imagined futures for their child. The experience of loss and complicated grief explains the bereaved parents’ searching behaviour and their difficulty in coming to terms with the reality of death (Moos & Schaefer, 1986: 11; Neimeyer, 2000: 549–550; Worden, 2008: 67). One of the most difficult tasks in resolving any loss is to make sense of it (Boss, 1999: 118). In the face of the violent rupture of the parent–child relationship and the unsettling feeling that one has lost control over how one’s life unravels, bereaved parents demand that their loss is not meaningless.

When Stéphane Sarrade learns of the death of his son, Hugo Sarrade, at the age of 23, in the terrorist attack against the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on 13 November 2015, he finds himself at loss to come up with any logical explanation or meaning behind the indiscriminate violence that has taken the lives of 130 people and led to the long-term physical and psychological trauma of hundreds of others. The loss of his son confronts Stéphane with the daunting challenge of finding meaning in an event that has eroded his sense of purpose overnight and turned his world into a disordered and unsafe place. The disorientating and painful experience of loss suddenly comes to challenge the foundations of his world, founded upon logic and reason—as demonstrated by his over 30-year long career in the sciences and research as Director of Energy Programs at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The challenge of the traumatic lived experience and the complex process of meaning-making that Stéphane is grappling with transpire through his struggle to come to terms with the violent loss of his son. Years of trying to understand, dozens of encounters with other bereaved parents and counterterrorism experts, and working on himself were necessary for Stéphane to be able to integrate the experience of loss within his inner world built upon order, rationality, and meaning. The overwhelming grief, anger and trauma caused by the simultaneous terrorist attacks, which, in Stéphane’s words, ‘have brought France to its knees’, quickly come to haunt him and take on an all-consuming part in his life.

I was like you, educated at university and trained to try to understand, to find meaning in things. On 13 November 2015, which is when I lost my son Hugo who was 23 years old at the time, I was confronted for the first time in my life with something that did not make sense. (Stephane Sarrade)

Stéphane’s account highlights the impossibility of rationalising the violent loss of a child that formed an integral part of his lifeworld. The significance of this is eloquently demonstrated in the loss of his sense of self in the aftermath of Hugo’s death. Stéphane’s efforts to recover meaning and a sense of purpose thus stand for an attempt to recover the part of self that has been constructed through the parental relationship with his son (Bradbury, 1999: 176). The violent ‘removal’ of the young person who has been murdered inevitably implies a loss of future and raises an awareness of the painful discrepancy between the world ‘after’ and the one that ‘should be’. Stéphane’s struggle to ‘relearn the world’ (Attig, 1991: 393) in the aftermath of loss finds expression in his desperation to attach meaning to the event and in his dedication to prevention of radicalisation and fight against obscurantism. In embarking upon a search for coherence and purpose in the life profoundly transformed by the endured loss, Stéphane’s grief constitutes a process of ‘reconstructing a world of meaning’ in the aftermath of a sudden, traumatic death (Neimeyer et al., 2010: 73).

During my entire life and especially in my work with students, I try to teach them to find meaning in things. There was also deeply inside me this vision of saying: ‘But it’s incomprehensible! How did young boys, who were generally the age of Hugo and who were born in France, find themselves with weapons in this concert hall on 13 November? How did they end up killing my son?’ This is something that quickly haunted me and on which I had to work. […] And then, in parallel, there was this work of memory ‘He must continue living through us’. This is the reason why I started talking to different media soon after Hugo’s death. (Stephane Sarrade)

The grief over the sudden loss of a child is bound up with the sense that they might be forgotten and that their loss may be meaningless as states and societies fail to address the violence and injustice at the heart of such losses. When the terrorist attack on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on France’s National Day in 2016 takes the life of Anne Murris’ daughter, she finds her life shattered within seconds. Camille Murris is only 27 years old when a 19-ton cargo truck is deliberately driven into the celebrating crowds on the symbolic for the French Riviera walkway. The disarray and profound suffering inflicted by the violent death of her child and the insensitive way in which the judicial police announce the tragic news to the family push her mother Anne into a complicated and protracted grief. At the same time, the shock of death and the impossibility of seeing the body due to its physical state reveals how the missing corpse has turned into an impetus for the bereaved parent to search elsewhere for the child’s affective presence. The love for her daughter Camille and the refusal that others should go through the violence of such experiences give Anne the strength and lucidity to gradually transform her trauma and grief into a memory-making commitment that draws a powerful connection with Camille even after death. Between the painfulness of memory and the unbearability of forgetting, Anne chooses to make keeping Camille’s memory alive her life’s mission.

The process of meaning reconstruction for Anne thus entails preserving the relationship with the deceased child in a manner which ensures a thread of Camille’s affective continuity in the life of the living. Anne’s individual battle for memory and prevention of radicalisation quickly takes on a collective dimension when she commits herself to keeping alive not only the memory of her daughter, but also of all victims to the terrorist attack and transform the immeasurable loss of human lives into something that counts and carries meaning for society. Each time we spoke, Anne’s eyes filled with tears and her voice began to shake at the very thought that the loss of her daughter and many others might count for nothing. By investing herself in the victim support organisation established very soon after the terrorist attack, Anne is able to symbolically counterbalance the horror she has been through and gradually regain control over her life. Beauty, art, and creativity become Anne’s tools in her attempt to not only come to terms with loss, but also to regain a sense of self and purpose by reinvesting her life with meaning and resilience that extremist violence has sought to shatter (Aberbach, 1989: 21).

After the loss of my daughter, there was something that crossed my mind. I refused that she died for nothing and I said to myself that I must fight as a person and as a mother, a mother who holds the memory of her daughter. There is a continuity between her existence and my fight. […] So, I went into this fight for memory and prevention and sought to add an artistic side of beauty and elegance to it. It was always my theme. For me, it's more soothing. When I immerse myself in certain things that are important such as the judicial trial, it's painful and distressing for me. It makes me angry. I have to be able to rebuild myself as best as I can. I have to be in themes that allow me to transform my suffering instead of leading me to additional suffering. (Anne Murris)

Klass et al.’s (1996: 212) argument that part of the resolution of parental grief is ‘making the pain count for something’ is confirmed by the bereaved parents’ efforts to ensure that the affective presence of the deceased child continues in their on-going lives. The loss of the physical presence of the loved ones pushes both Anne and Stéphane to look for memory-making commitments that would allow them to make ‘a transition from loving in presence to loving in separation’ (Attig, 2002: 116). The parental commitment to ensure that loss is not an end in itself, but that it means something, allows them to recover and reconnect the pieces of their lives shattered by intense grief and trauma. It also gives Anne and Stéphane the inspiration and strength to look for an enduring place for the dead in the personal and social worlds of those they have left behind.

Transforming Loss into a Living Memorial

In the stark reality of the loss of a child, the funeral does not mark an end to parents’ grief, nor can grand commemorations or the judicial proceedings alone resolve grief. The parental need for memorialisation is underpinned by some vivid and unique memories they keep of the loved lost one and the time they have spent together. The recollection of unique personality traits and fond memories offers Anne and Stéphane purpose and creative resources to commit themselves to memory-making activities that aspire to intellectually bring back the deceased in all their complexity and idealised individuality. At the same time, the commitment to remembering the loved lost ones and continuously reinscribing their legacy in the lives of the living does not stand for a progressive coming to terms with loss nor aims to eventually relinquish the ties with the deceased as promoted by stage theories of grief. Instead, this chapter argues that the parental commitment to a living memorial represents an attempt to continue the bonds with the deceased and eventually find an affect-laden way of celebrating the part of their loved one that is still present and mourn the part that is lost. By committing themselves to initiatives which are inspired by the life of their children and what mattered the most to them, both parents symbolically continue to ‘have’ what they have ‘lost’, albeit in a transformed relationship (Attig, 2010: 189). In this sense, the commitment to a living memorial responds to the central challenge in grieving which is ‘learning to love in a new way, to love someone in separation’ (Attig, 2002: 330).

Obviously, in all my actions, I want to restore Camille. Camille was a young woman who was very invested on a humanitarian level, who was very altruistic. […] She did a Master's degree in a Business School and was the president of the humanitarian association in it. During her holidays, she would travel abroad to participate in humanitarian missions. This was something really powerful in her life. After her studies, she was the head of a marketing project in a Parisian marketing agency, but she quit her job to do what was more important in her life – helping others, helping children. […] So, somehow, my investment for the memory of all the others was a way to continue everything that Camille was in her lifetime. There is a main reason – it is my fight for survival, for resilience. It is also the continuity of who she was. (Anne Murris)

The affective presence of Camille embodied by the multiple photos in Anne’s office indicated to me the continued parental involvement with the deceased and the need for a tangible reminder of the passionate and dedicated young woman, whose contagious positivism and altruism have made a difference for many children in South America. The photographs simultaneously mark an absence and testify to a continued affective presence in the thoughts, mind, and the everyday environment of the bereaved parent. Yet, it is Anne’s unwavering commitment that interweaves her life with the life of Camille and grants her an affective afterlife through the continuation of Camille’s projects. In order to pay tribute to her and to promote her values, Camille’s family entrusted ‘HOPE’, a humanitarian organisation promoting equality, with the continuation of a humanitarian mission to help children in need in South America, a cause which was particularly close to Camille’s heart. By making Camille’s legacy her own, Anne experiences the transformative power of her daughter’s affective presence, and it offers her solace and a purpose in the midst of her mourning. Thanks to Anne’s investment in keeping Camille’s memory alive, the values and meanings of her legacy will remain untouched by death. Camille’s affective presence will hopefully be discovered and integrated into the lives of young people for whom her altruism has made a difference. The continuation of Camille’s humanitarian projects also demonstrates how the social being of the deceased does not necessarily come to an end with death. The affective labour of the bereaved parent provides a powerful source for the on-going substantial and precious connection with the deceased child.

Another telling example of continuing bonds through the affective commemoration of the deceased child’s life rather than death is Anne’s involvement in Noël Smara’s project to place 86 pebbles in tribute to the victims of the Nice attack at more than 6,000 metres above the sea level in the mountain range of the Himalayas. When Noël, a paramedic at the Nice University Hospital and president of the association ‘Exploits Without Borders’, contacts the victim support association that Anne is at the time involved with, she immediately embraces his voluntary mission. The project not only aims to pay tribute to the victims and the rescue teams that saved human lives on the night of 14 July 2016, but also carries a charitable, civic, and educational value. The pebbles are painted in the colours of the French flag by disadvantaged children from the ‘Saint-Éxupéry’ School in L'Escarène. During the journey, clothing, school supplies, and computer equipment offered by the University Hospital Centre of Nice are distributed in the villages of high altitude in the Himalayas region. The vision, efforts, and active process of working together of all partners to the project transform what might at first glance be perceived as an abstract and unrelatable initiative, into a living memorial that, in Anne’s vision, stands for memory, hope, and a future.

While other members find the idea to be lacking a concrete purpose apart from its humanitarian value, Anne’s involvement in the memory-making project is affectively tied to her inner representation of her deceased daughter because it points to places and times that had been significant in Camille's life. Moreover, the voluntary project is experienced as a gift by Anne as it gives her a sense that the voluntary mission affectively recovers her daughter, and that her inner representation of Camille takes on an embodied form despite her physical absence. The inner recovery of the loved one through the living memorial sustains and deepens the affective connection between the deceased and the bereaved. In those lines, the living memorial helps make loss meaningful for the mourning parent as it captures unique characteristics of the deceased child and draws attention to the value of her life and irreplaceable nature. It also affectively links the parental trauma of loss to the impetus to remember and make life by transforming the experience of loss into something that counts.

As soon as I saw Noël’s project, I cried. There you go. I want to be sincere with you. This project may seem pointless, pretentious and very personal, but reading about it reminded me of my daughter. […] The last images I had of Camille were from her humanitarian trip to Argentina when she was in the highest village in the world. I see pictures of my daughter from this humanitarian mission. There was no running water there. She came down every day to see the children in the village. […] When she was little, we called her ‘pebble’. This word has a particular resonance in my head. As soon as I saw this project, I said to myself: ‘I need to invest myself in it’. (Anne Murris)

The commitment to charitable projects, which, instead of marking a closure to grief, strive to maintain an affective presence of the lost loved one, is apparent in Stéphane’s testimony as well. The university bursary that Stéphane has founded not only carries Hugo’s name, but it will also allow students to do research in Japan, the country Hugo was amazed by after visiting it many times together with his father and where he wanted to do his PhD. While pointing at the wounded temporal dimension of trauma and the ‘what if’ of the life cut short, the living memorial dedicated to Hugo holds a powerful capability to mobilise an affective investment in and around trauma and create a space where the intimate rupture of a father–and-son bond transforms into a charitable action. By aspiring to fulfil Hugo’s dreams through creating educational opportunities for others, the living memorial also embodies a part of the lost child and integrates his affective life into the parent’s on-going inner life and social bonds. Thanks to Stéphane’s living memorial in tribute to his son, other young people will now travel to Japan where he spent unforgettable time together with Hugo and where a strong bond was forged between them. The bursary thus encompasses both the strength and the vulnerability of their lives and directs towards the connection which remains despite the physical separation. In addition, the charitable commitment in tribute to Hugo forms a part of an on-going process of reflection in which the life of the deceased child is remembered, rediscovered, and its social presence is affectively continued in the lives of the living.

This scholarship is called ‘Jiyuu-Hugo Sarrade’ and it is for two students – one in Montpellier because Hugo was enrolled at the university in Montpellier and one in Paris, in the ParisTech Schools because he died in Paris. So, it's a scholarship that helps to send two students to do an internship in Japan. Why Japan? Because I was often travelling for work there. For three years, I was a Visiting Professor there and so Hugo came very, very often with me to Japan. He was 7 times in Japan. Just like me, he was in love with this country. He wanted to do his PhD there. (Stéphane Sarrade)

Like Anne Murris, Stéphane keeps the memory of his son alive through a range of projects and embodied practices which essentially aspire to revive their connection and reclaim meanings in the midst of intense grief. His recourse to a visual expression of his loss, engraved upon his skin in the form of a permanent tattoo, marks the time of deep connection with Hugo. Incised upon his chest, Stéphane’s tattoo transforms the traumatic loss into a bodily sensation rather than a mere representation. While trauma can prove particularly difficult to express, memorial tattoos tell eloquently of one’s loss in a non-verbal mode which communicates to others confessional and personal stories of loss. The tattoo which Stéphane gets after the death of his son is identical to the one he saw on his son’s chest 15 days before the terrorist attack against the Bataclan concert hall. The shared interview encounter and the intimate nature of the parental testimony created a space where the foreignness between my interviewee and me gradually dissolved. When Stéphane unbuttoned his shirt to show me his tattoo, I was suddenly confronted with the visual image of a memorial reminder on his chest that indicates presence and, at the same time, stands for a permanent scar of endured loss and absence. The symbols on his chest gave an eloquent expression of the embodied memory of the deceased loved one that lives on as a bodily sensation.

This is Jiyuu. In Japanese, it means ‘freedom’. Hugo got this tattoo just before he died. I saw him 15 days before, he had just come back from Japan and got this tattoo. In 2016, I went to Tokyo to the same tattoo artist to do the same tattoo. So freedom, that is what it stands for. Hugo, a young adult, like all young boys, he had difficulty finding himself. He had parents who had divorced. He told me: ‘One day, when in my head I am free, when I know what I would like to do in my life, I will get this tattoo which means ‘freedom’”. I'm happy, because I saw him 15 days before his death and he had this tattoo. It was a symbol to tell me: ‘There you go, dad. I am free of my demons and I want to move forward’. (Stéphane Sarrade)

The memorial tattoo counteracts the physical separation and the fragility of the human relationship that violence has destroyed by inscribing a constant, stable, and permanent physical reminder of the loved one turning it into a lifelong memorial (Lanigan 2007 cited in Swann-Thomas et al., 2022: 353). The inscription of the tattoo on Stéphane’s skin enables him to mark the individual story of losing his son in a lasting way as it becomes an inseparable part of his body, just like the grief he carries with him every day (Sarnecki, 2001). The memorial tattoo also stands for a visual token of the continuing bond with Hugo and poignantly testifies to their enduring connection by giving an embodied and tangible place to his son in his continuing life (Ablin 2006 cit. in Swann-Thomas et al., 2022: 354). The symbolic paradox of the permanent physical absence of Hugo from Stéphane’s life, and at the same time, the affective presence embodied by the memorial tattoo on his chest eloquently points to how grief is continuously negotiated in the bereaved parent’s life and how bonds are continued after death. The pain endured during the process of getting a tattoo refers not only to the psychological impact of the sustained violent loss, but also to the symbolic price of facing the trauma and transforming it into an enduring sign of attachment and resilience.

When I tell you this, it is to explain to you that I know both the price, but at the same time the worth of resilience. I will never get over the loss of my son. Losing a child is something that is unimaginable. It is against nature. We bury our grandparents. We bury our parents. We don't bury our children. It's hell. But beyond that, regarding the memory aspect, it is important for me to build things, to do things. (Stéphane Sarrade)

The commitment to founding a ‘living memorial’ constitutes an integral part of the process of affective symbolisation into which the bereaved parents come to make ‘new’ sense of their lives in the post-attack world, how they form relationships with others and find support in their search for meaning. After seeing their lives shattered, the bereaved can anew become subjects of their lives through continuing to care for something that embodies the life and values of the lost child and, at the same time, demonstrates resistance to forgetting and an enduring resilience to violence. Equally, the living memorial stands for a re-engagement with life’s social and political dimensions, which are highly restricted in the aftermath of trauma. In this sense, living memorials play a key role in externalising trauma and integrating loss. The bereaved parents are no longer immobilised, and can finally begin to mourn the child that they survive.

The Limits of Inert Memorials in the Face of Grief

Neither Anne nor Stéphane have returned to the site where their children’s lives were taken. This highlights the contrast between the individual, embodied experiences of grief and the grand narrative of states which seek to wrap up the pain through the establishment of inert memorials and concrete places of memory as a way of demonstrating resilience and moving on (Milošević, 2017). In contrast to memorials which synthesise the pain and memory of loss and symbolically place a distance between the bereaved and the lost loved ones, interviews with parents years after the attacks that took their children’s lives show how flashback memories and pain come into their everyday lives unexpectedly, as raw as they used to feel in the immediate aftermath of losing a child. The trauma that binds bereaved parents to a temporality that they do not master supplies the true measure of their grief.

The accounts of Anne and Stéphane also challenge the intuitive belief that the inauguration of inert memorials successfully accomplishes memorialisation (Allen & Brown, 2011: 314) and allows for the resolution of grief. In addition, the affective act of remembering through memory-making activities is independent from the unveiling of a permanent memorial. While the former gives the deceased child’s life a continuity that transcends death, the latter marks a symbolic ‘ceremony of separation’ (Attig, 2002: 103) and could sometimes trigger additional pain for the one grieving. Moreover, while both Anne and Stéphane consider permanent memorials in tribute to the victims of terrorism an important part of awareness-raising and remembrance, they are aware that the inert memorials are not for them as they can never forget. In their view, the memorial sites will speak to those whose knowledge and experiences of the attacks would blessedly be only vicarious. This realisation along with the emotional difficulty to return to the affect-laden sites of memory indicate that places are powerful bearers of meaning and that traumatic losses can turn these same places into inhospitable spaces overwhelmed with painful memories. The sites of the terrorist attacks where the life of a loved one has ceased are not only permeated with absence, but they also stand for ‘repositories of pain’ which can never again nurture life (Attig, 2002: 133).

As for the rest, I have not returned to the Promenade des Anglais. I don't go there anymore. It's very hard for me. The closest place to the Promenade I have been to is the temporary memorial [in the garden of Villa Massena]. When I'm there, I'm very uncomfortable, because I see it [the Promenade]. When I am interviewed by journalists next to the temporary memorial [during days of commemoration], I turn to the opposite side although the sun then shines straight into my eyes and almost blinds me. I prefer this to seeing what is behind me. It's very, very difficult for me. (Anne Murris)

Stéphane’s thoughts and reactions to cemeteries and inert memorials also contest the traditional understanding of graveyards as ‘bounded’ spaces which provide environments for peaceful reflection and sense of timelessness in which to remember the dead loved ones (Francis et al., 2005: 6). Even years after the terrorist attacks, Stéphane’s memories still feel too raw and painful for him to be confronted with inert memorials that point to and affirm Hugo’s absence. The inert form that traces the contours of absence takes away the opportunity for him to speak to his son and laugh as they used to do together in Japan. This confirms that for bereaved parents the memory of the lost loved one is built into their daily activities. Stéphane’s account demonstrates how visiting Hugo’s grave or permanent memorials inaugurated by the state or local authorities may be rejected in favour of a personalised memory-making activity. While inert memorials serve to preserve the past in a fixed and spatially determined way, living memorials attempt to preserve the lost life through transformation that connects its force to other lives (Allen & Brown, 2011: 323).

Regarding the memorial aspect, I have not been able to go to the Bataclan or see the memorial which is in front of it. I struggle a lot with going to Hugo's grave in Montpellier. It has been six months since I went there for the last time although I am now here in Montpellier. I struggle a lot with these memorial places because, somewhere, they remind me that my son is dead. So I think that it will come later. I think it will come especially with Hugo's brother when he grows up. One day he would love to visit them and see. For me, the memorial places are the opposite, they remind me, they put me back in front of the reality of Hugo’s death. Like his grave, in fact. His grave says to me: ‘Look, he is there. He is no longer with us’. (Stéphane Sarrade)

The more I engaged with Anne and Stéphane’s lived experiences of the loss they have sustained as a result of the terror attacks, the more I realised the extent to which they were introducing me to their children, their unique relationship, and the variety of ways in which they continued to be present in the lives of the living. The parents shared that talking about their son or daughter makes them happy, as if they are reliving cherished moments together and as if their affective presence always accompanies them. The imaginary conversations, sensory and intuitive knowing, or simply navigating through the ordinary daily spaces and objects associated with the lost children evoked the parental wish and need for presence, even if only an affective one.

My path is marked by these encounters with people who have helped me to understand, to move forward, who have shown me humanity. It's not something I'm making up. Often, when I talk to Hugo, I say to him: ‘What did you get me into?’ I found myself filming this scene with military veterans. Without the Bataclan, I would have never done such a thing! So, I make fun telling him: ‘You made me do these things! Five years later, I find myself in situations that...’. Well, that's part of the complicity, of the bond between my son and me that we created between each other in Japan in particular. (Stéphane Sarrade)

The continuing bonds with the deceased child are located and sustained inwardly through highly personal memory-making activities, such as memorial tattoos, as well as outwardly through founding bursaries and other socially oriented activities. The meaning-making commitments inspired by the deceased child also emotionally locate the life cut short as a constant inner presence in the life of the bereaved, offering them solace and a tangible acknowledgement of the inseverability of the parent–child connection.

Conclusion

By focusing on individual embodied experiences of violent loss, the chapter has highlighted some of the limitations of inert memorials in bringing grief resolution and of linear stage-models to facing grief. The interpretive phenomenological analysis of in-depth interviews with two bereaved parents has sought to offer a more contingent perspective on how bereaved parents reflect on and negotiate the simultaneous absence and continuing affective presence of the lost loved ones. The chapter has explored how memories of the departed can be sustained, their legacies embraced, and the grief over them transformed into an enduring commitment so that they continue to play active roles in the everyday and inner lives of the living. Although the bereaved parents still miss their children each day, the living memorials have an impact on the way they experience the pain of missing them differently. The pain and deprivation turn into a unique grief that is somehow easier to carry.

The shared testimonies of Stéphane Sarrade and Anne Murris also challenge the conventional understanding of grand memorial projects as contributing to grief resolution. Instead, their memory-making commitments convey the overwhelming parental search for meaning in the aftermath of violent loss among other forms of remembrance which respond better to their need for affective presence and continuing bonds with the deceased. As the bereaved parents continue their engagement in living memorials, the stories and memories they keep of the deceased grow. Even in their absence, the parents come to know the loved lost one better. They have more of them to love. When, towards the end of our conversation, I asked Anne what gives her strength to continue her commitments, she told me: ‘First and foremost, it is the importance of life for those who remain and staying alive for those who have left’. Anne’s commitment thus fulfils the deceased child’s desire that she lives well even in the shadow of grief over the lost loved one. In learning to live in the absence of a child, both Anne and Stéphane demonstrate how continuing bonds and memory-making activities allow for the deceased individual to remain alive in a social sense.