My not-so-good friend, Despair

[caption id="attachment_3656" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Baby Ellie."][/caption]

I miss the sound of your voice.  The loudest thing in my head.  And I ache to remember all the .. sweet perfect words that you said. Come on get higher by Matt Nathanson. 

Its like a craving that cannot be filled.  An itch that cannot be scratched.  This missing of Ellie being here with us.  A dull ache.  I have dreams that we have lost her.  Is it normal as a parent to feel like you should be looking for your child when she is not there?  A sort of reverse imprinting.  I recall reading that Mary Todd Lincoln was known as "crazy".  Three of her 4 children died, not to even mention her husband being shot in front of her.  Now I think, of course, she was crazy.  How could she not be?  I cannot imagine that kind of grieving and all in the public eye.   

Someone told me once that whenever a time on the clock  is the same number, you get a wish (for example 5:55 or 3:33).  The other night, I looked up to see 11:11 displayed on my digital.  The most powerful of all, in my rule

[caption id="attachment_3660" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Baby Ben"][/caption]

book, because all 4 numbers are the same.   I scrambled to think of a wish before the time changed.  I realized all of my wishes more recently have been for Ellie.  For Ellie to feel better.  For Ellie to be able to have the strength to do what she loved to do.  "(Not so much because I am a selfless person (far from it) but because these were the most pressing issues in my day.)  I suppose, in a strange way, all of those wishes have come true.  Now I am left with my wish bucket empty.  I suppose I also have to re-learn how to wish (not to worry I am pretty good at coming up with wishes, ask Thom). 

In the book I am reading (Earthly Pleasuresby Karen Neches) the guardian angels have to yell to be heard.  This is because the humans cannot hear their angels with all the despairing voices talking in their heads. Reminds me of the times I feel Ellie, when I am still and quiet and filled with love.  Never in my moments of deepest despair. 

[caption id="attachment_3657" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Jilled Lotta."][/caption]

During one of Ellie's last hospital stays, I was at home, in bed with Lotta and Ben.  I was having a super ugly cry, trying to keep silent and not wake the sleeping children snuggled against me.  At the same time. get it out, so I don't have to walk around with that heaviness.  Suddenly Ben rolled over and put his arm on my shoulder.  I knew in that moment that not only would I assist them in surviving this, but  Ben and Lotta would uphold me throughout this journey of grief.  There will be and have been times where I will be as crazy as Mary Todd.  I know not only will Lotta and Ben motivate me to come back to joy, but they will call me there with there own jilled spirits.  Because just like Ellie. being jilled is their natural state.