Seeing Ellie

[caption id="attachment_4589" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ellie and her siblings and her Aunts Sara and Amy"][/caption]

Once I announced that I intended to include Ellie in my life, I received two e-mails I wanted to share.  One is from our favorite PICU Nurse, Katie, whom I was able to have coffee with last week.

I forgot to tell you that I was telling a couple of nurses I was meeting with you. Kelly (I don't know if you remember her, but she cared for Ellie a lot) said to tell you hi. She then said that Ellie was just, magic, that there was such an aura about her. We couldn't quite find the words to describe her as we were reminiscing about her, but agreed she was just magical and we missed that. There has not been a patient since Ellie, nor do I think I will ever care for one again that was quite like her. I miss feeling her magical aura.

Then a few days later, I heard from Ellie's teacher, Sue Zwart (which was marked as having been sent at 4:39 am.  Told Sue it made me feel lazy "sleeping in" until 8am!!)

I've been reading your blog and of course have noticed how your life has taken on a new perspective.  It's a perspective I hoped you could get to in time.  It's always amazing to me how powerful our thoughts can be to our own happiness.  On Thursday a student, who loves fancy like Ellie, came up to the flamingo room from the library.  She had just checked out a book and brought it along with her. It was Purplelicious.  I was so happy to see that book and thought about how many times Ellie and I had read it together. I asked Lila if she wanted me to read it to her and she said, 'Yes."  I opened the book and there was Ellie's picture.  It was like, and I don't mean this in a bad way, that Lila wasn't really there but Ellie was.  When we were at Ellie's celebration in January you let us all pick out a hat that had been Ellie's.  I picked a tall multicolored Dr. Seuss looking hat. Well, it sits  up on top of my giant flamingo in my room.

Finally, I wanted to share a "dream" I had...

The other night as I was falling asleep, I suddenly had a vision of Ellie standing on the stairs.  It was so startling that it felt as if I was falling, the image was so real.  It made me feel so delighted and glappy to see her standing there again.  Then just as suddenly I crashed to ground with longing, yearning, wistfulness for her physically.   What a powerful mix of emotions it was right before sleeping, not too restful I gotta tell you.