In the mild evening, we met Alain, at his camper van parked down the grounds below the shrine where he has been staying for a few weeks. His daughter Marion went missing in 2023 during a trek on the island of Dominica. How can you overcome such an ordeal and bear the gnawing, maddening uncertainty? in great simplicity, Alain shared his doubts and his hope: “I am supported in this by Christ, who helps me cross the deep valleys of madness and death.”
How Marion went missing
When Marion’s parents heard that their daughter was missing, they immediately set off to look for her in the Caribbean. They experienced four months of anguish, twists and turns, false hopes and painful disappointments. They even received disturbing information from psychics, who would say: “She is a prisoner”, “She had a fall”, “She is surrounded by magic.” Whom was to be believed? What should they do? “At one point, said Alain, I said: ‘No more of this! Lord, I let go and put my fate in your hands’. We’ve got to end this because this is becoming crazy’. From then on, I started to come back to Christ. He helped me through the deep valleys of madness, death and the horror of losing my daughter. There’s no control over loss. I could only turn to God, saying: “Thy will be done”. Otherwise, I would have died of despair.
A slow transformation
Back in France, Alain heard about Montligeon, mentioned by a childhood friend. He arrived on August 15 and let go of everything: “I was able to cry all the tears I’d been holding back. I surrendered myself completely to God. I knew I had to give up a part of myself – the protector’role, the father who is no longer there for his child.” He also had to accept his anger. Even though he was supported for a year by a therapist, he felt that he was missing something to get to overcome his grief. He had to accept life. “If I say ‘Yes’ to life, to love, I will start to heal. But if I resist, I suffer and I drag my whole family into that suffering.”
I found comfort in faith
Also, Alain somehow got weary of life, gradually. “At one point, I just didn’t want to live anymore. I’m not suicidal, but I just didn’t have the strength to go on. I felt no longer interested in this world. My children also noticed that things weren’t right, despite my best efforts to tell them that everything was fine. But I had to go through this suffering to transform myself inside. For the past three months, I’ve felt something new growing inside me, like a new life being born in the soil of suffering. Out of the debris, something is being reborn.” It’s a victory of life over death.
I want to believe she’s still out there somewhere!
A year later, the stricken father returned to Montligeon. He had stopped working and was living on a shoestring, just long enough to get back on his feet. With his camper van, he now drives throughout France. The shrine does him good. With his missing daughter, the bond is changing: “I cannot talk to her anymore, or hold her in my arms, but the link is still there, and maybe even stronger in some ways. Sometimes I feel her presence, like an answer to my prayer. Although different, the bond remains unique. It has become a form of prayer, an invisible dialogue.”
Before getting back on the road, Alain says with a smile: “Today, I feel accompanied every day. Solitude no longer exists for me. I still have a lot of questions, but I’m no longer alone. I’m on a journey, on an inner quest that brings me closer to Christ. It’s that faith, that hope, that enables me to get through the hardships.
