Yesterday was the third grade field trip to a forest. I volunteered and then immediately worried about it being a FULL day field trip. Because the last full day school volunteer opportunity I participated in just felt like I was hungry ALL DAY long. Which reminded me of how that was kind of my experience in school, just feeling a bit hungry all day. The bus ride turned out to be more tenuous than I thought as the hot stuffy bus bouncy around AND over many large hills did nothing good for my stomach. As I was attempting to keep everything down and not up, I had the realization that we would have to repeat this all to get home.
As we hiked through the forest, Lotta became hungrier and hungrier. (I guess I should have worried more about HER hunger levels...next time.) As we explored the forest, we looked down to notice the bugs or plants growing down there. Near the end, I looked down and there on the forest floor was a tiny piece of yellow crayon paper. I was shocked. As you may or may not recall, Ellie LOVED to break and peel crayons. AND her favorite colors for awhile were orange and yellow. So I was stunned to see this little reminder right there on this forest floor. I turned to Lotta to express my amazement. She just sighed and slumped some more, saying, "I'm just so hungry right now, I can't even..." One of her classmates asked if she was "hangry", which didn't help the situation much.
Then today (Saturday) Zibbi and I had "date" to get
manicures at a local beauty school. As we were leaving, Zibbi noticed some nail polishes on sale. She begged me to get a fuschia color. I was trying to convince her to choose a different color. Zibbi turned the bottle over and asked me to read what the color was named. "Ellie" it said. Of course, we bought it. How could we not?
I remember after Ellie died how often I would see reminders of her, it's been awhile since I've seen any. Now, I feel primed for them, sort of like how Ellie started looking for yellow cars (yellars, as she called them) and suddenly they were EVERYWHERE. During lunch at the field trip, I shared the story with a fellow mom (who just happens to work at Hospice). She said she thought it was amazing that out of all the forest, I was able to find that little bit of magic. I think I'll keep on looking for the magic...
