The Smallest Things

Today has been a rather pleasant day.  I went over to my brother and sister-in-law's house and played with my niece outside while they did some chores.  Then we went and had a nice lunch.  When we got back, I helped her color some pictures - I am certainly not an artist.  I always knew that would have been the one thing I could never have helped Ellie with as she was growing up - I cannot draw animals or really any kind of object that is more complicated then a basic tree or flower.  But I can color with the best of them and enjoy coloring books so I guess it would have worked out if Ellie was the coloring book type.  I think about her as I'm coloring or playing with my niece.  I like to think that she is there in spirit playing along with us.

After I kissed my niece as she went down for her nap, I left and headed over to the craft store.  I wanted to pick up some loom bracelet supplies to resume my bracelet making and I also wanted to pick up a loom for hat making.  I had seen a news story the other night that was about a woman who had begun making newborn and preemie hats to donate to a local hospital when she was just a teenager.  It made me think back to the fateful night we lost Ellie and how volunteers had made a hat that she was wearing when we said our final goodbyes.  While on bedrest I had also learned the basics of needle knitting with the other ladies that were "longtermers" in the hospital like I was.  I was not very good at this version and my hat that I finally finished pales in comparison to the knitted hat Ellie was wearing.  I did, however, get into the looming, and after seeing the news story that showed this woman donating her time and energy to loom knit preemie hats for the hospital, it got me interested in perhaps taking up the hobby again.  Who knows if I'll ever make any decent ones (it's never as easy as it looks in the videos...), but if I do I'd like to donate them too.

I returned home to drop my supplies off and then I headed back out to meet my friend at the park.  It was a fairly nice day so we decided we'd go for a nice long walk.  It felt good to be back outside and starting to get into a habit of exercising again (I kicked my own butt last night at the gym and was paying for that today).  As we walked and talked, I noticed all the families who were out at the park today.  I'd like to think that Ellie was there in spirit with me during this as well.  I would have brought her with me I'm sure on many walks like this.  I enjoyed the nice long walk and finally went back home, spent a little time with my husband before he had to go to work, and made my first loom bracelet since being in the hospital.

All of the little events today made me think about Ellie being here in spirit with me as I went about doing them, and how she will be there in spirit in anything that I do in the future.  I noticed as we put my niece down for her nap that she had a Winnie the Pooh book in her room that they have been reading to her a little bit each night before bed.  This made me think about the multitude of quotes by A.A. Milne that perfectly reflect how I feel and think.  But here is one that sums up how I feel about Ellison today, and every day.

“Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”