Seeing the Magic

This blog is like a life boat, at times saving me from drowning in a sea of emotions.  Everything seems so wange (weird strange) right now.  I am reading a Jennifer Weiner book.  The main character discovers her husband is cheating on her.  As her world falls apart, everything seems surreal.  Even words, like yoga, sound absurd to her.  That's how I feel right now.  We went to the movies--all 4 of us--something we had never done before (I mean Lotta's only 5 months so it's not that unusual).  As I was leaving I had that sensation of no one there knowing that my daughter died the day before yesterday. 

There was a morning this week as Ellie lay in bed, struggling to breath, when I heard the trash truck.  I had a moment of incredulity.  How could something as normal as trash collection be happening while my daughter lay there hanging on to the very last threads of her life?  It seemed absurd. 

Ben was talking about time travel this morning and I immediately thought I would go back in time to when Ellie felt GOOD and spend some time with her.  Even if it was for a moment, I could absorb her smell, her smile, her beautiful brown eyes that seemed so wise.  Ask her all the questions I have now that I can longer ask.  It all seems so fleeting.  My arms feel so empty now.  I suppose it wouldn't matter because you can't really truly capture it, it's like trying to hold onto air or water or even love.  It is constantly escaping no matter how hard you try to hold onto it. 

And yet, I find evidence of Ellie everyone.  I mean beyond all the photos I have displayed.  This morning Ben wanted to have art time.  As we were getting out more and more art supplies, being messy is of course an essential part of art time, I opened our box of Cray-Pas.  All of the Cray-Pas were peeled and broken.  From a hospital stay when Ellie just could not help but break and peel them "for" me. 

On Thursday, Ben went on a playdate.  Brittany, Betsy and I sat watching 3:oo programing (my all time favorite time for daytime television) and the time when Ben is typically watching PBS Kids immediately after school.  We kept switching between 3 shows--Ellen, Nate Burchus, and Steven & Chris.  At one point, we switched to Steven & Chris, where John Edwards, the medium (not the politician) was a guest.  He was answering questions from the audience.  He said, I am getting a name--with the letter "L" in it, a vowel starting.  Hmm that's interesting, we thought.  No one in the audience really responded.  Then he said, "I'm getting brain cancer".  The woman he was talking to said there was cancer but nothing with the brain.  Then he said, "I'm getting the number 13."  We were all flabbergasted.  I mean it didn't make any logical sense.  Brittany told me that she felt like Ellie was just bigger than time--superceding when the show was filmed.  Beyond time.  Beyond space. 

Speaking of Brittany, her co-worker noticed that Ellie's time of death, 6:34 also adds up to 13. 

Yesterday I was listening to Pandora and a song I'd either never noticed or never heard came on.  It was performed by Faith Hill called There You'll Be.  It felt like it was straight from Ellie, just as after my friend Lubi passed, I heard the song We'll Be Together performed by Janet Jackson and had no doubt that it was a message from beyond. 

Finally, a Monkey Bar Gym friend, Debra, e-mailed me this.  "The circle of life is crazy.  The day Danica was born, a good family friend died.  Today, at 4:55am my good friend and cousin gave birth to a little girl....named Ellie."  

Call me crazy (I am quite certain I've been called worse), but even through the fog of my grief, I see signs of Ellie magic all around me.  Yet this morning, I would still trade it all for time travel.