Too Late

Maybe you read the title of this blog and thought, oh boy, here comes another emotional one.  Get out those tissues.  AGAIN.  Maybe you contemplated all the things that are too late to do now that Ellie has passed.  Too late to send a package.  Too late to hug her.  Too late to ask her a question or hear a new word.  Ugh. 

On Thursday, January 13, as we walked Ben home from the bus stop, he talked about how he had made a special mobile for Ellie but he had forgotten it at school.  Now it was too late to give it to her.  I suggested that we could still hang it in Ellie's room, but alas that was not at all satisfying.  As hard as it was as his mother, I had to let him have that disappointment and grief.  This too was part of the process.

Over the last week there have been times that I've thought about things that we didn't do.  We didn't get all the photos I wanted hung on the Wall of Love.  We didn't get a bigger bookshelf in Ellie's room as we had discussed.  I mean I am sure if I went down this road I could think of plenty of things that we didn't do.  Then I realize that a lot of these undone things were more important to methan they were to Ellie.  Maybe just maybe the point of the conversation was the fun of planning these things more than the actual accomplishment of them.  Because if anything, Ellie was all about the joy of the journey, not about waiting for something to happen to get happy.  (Reminds me of her silly saying, "happy is happying.")

Oftentimes, when Ellie was in the hospital, someone would say, "Have fun"  or "Have a good day" or something along those lines.  Ellie would reply, "It's too late."  Then she would pause.  I would squirm as the discomfort in the room mounted.  Sometimes the person would look back in alarm, wondering why it was too late.  Ellie would inform the person that she was alreadyhaving a good day or having fun.  What a lesson. She wasn't going to wait until she was out of the hospital, or even able to get up out of bed to have not just a good day, good was never good enough for our Ellie, but to have a grabulous (great + fabulous) or fantasterrific (fantastic + terrific) day.  Her joy was not dependent on where she was or even what was happening inside her body.  She did not have to make a plan to do something to have fun, she already was having fun.  Now when someone suggests I have fun or have a good day, I immediately think, it's too late.