I'm not feeling overly verbous today. The extent, and highlight, of my day thus far has been traversing around Richmond for a late lunch with my family. My brother, sister-in-law, niece, Mom, and Dad all went to see the circus this morning. Natalie has been talking about it forever. My sister-in-law asked us if we wanted to go, but I just didn't think I was up to that yet. See, I had imagined taking Ellison to the circus one day, and I didn't think I'd be ready to see all the joy and wonderment on all the little kids' faces knowing that I'd never be able to see that on Ellison's face. I'm still not up for things like this just yet. Hopefully next year because I do want to see the big smile on Natalie's face as she sees all the acts and marvels at the pretty animals, etc.
But I did tell them that Doug and I would meet them for lunch after the circus. My brother picked a place in Carytown not knowing that everybody and their brother would be in Carytown today. Traffic was horrendous and the waits at most restaurants were ridiculous. So we met up and decided to head back to the West End and deal with the suburban traffic instead. Of course we settled on Chic-Fil-A - Natalie's favorite Saturday lunch spot. During the car ride back to our side of town to meet back up, I was telling Doug that today marked one month since we lost Ellison. While most of my friends are celebrating their babys' one month, or two month, or whatever month milestones, we are dealing with the one month mark of our baby's death. It's still tough to swallow. It hasn't eased after a month - I can't foresee the pain easing anytime soon.
We finally arrived at Chic-Fil-A and did manage to enjoy a nice lunch, along with every other family in the West End despite it being a 2:30 pm lunch (who would have thought it would be that crowded on a Saturday at that time...). Natalie told us all about the tigers and elephants and unicycle riders, and we saw a video of her attempts to jump rope backstage before the show (definitely needs to work on her coordination..) and pictures of her circus experience - sno cone and cotton candy eating included. It was a good distraction from having to confront the reality of the one month mark...
And then, we left to go back home. The distraction was over and the reality sunk back in. Doug and I keep falling back on how everything seems to be against us - we're stuck in a rut of bad luck, with seeminly no end in sight. We tried so hard to have Ellison, and we found out we were having her, and we bonded with her just waiting for her to arrive, and then she was taken before we could even look her in the eyes and tell her we loved her. And because of this, the world just seems to be against us in everything that we do. As I pondered these thoughts, I remembered a quote my sister-in-law had sent me the other day for some words of encouragement:
"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." - Henry Ford
This thought seemed to offer me a tidbit of hope. Perhaps we can fight through the bad luck run we seem to be having, and one day finally reach the destination. But then again, Robert Eliot once said "if you can't fight, and you can't flee, flow." So maybe we just need to go with the flow and hope we end up there. Either way, the tide has to change at some point - or I at least need to believe it will. And maybe in the upcoming years we'll be able to take our future child to the circus for the first time with Natalie, all the while holding Ellison in our hearts wishing that she could have been there too...
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