Today was lovely. We started off with breakfast out, just the three (four??) of us at a fave haunt. Thoroughly immersed in watching the LGBB and wondering was it just us being tender with her or was she being even more sweet than usual.I started out with a lump in my throat and tears just threatening to leap out. Text messages and a couple of short loving phone calls from dearest friends pushed me to the brink (due to the kind and caring, not just for us but mainly for our girl) and one in particular came right when I was marvelling that I had never, in all the times we've been to this restaurant and were familiar with their rather limited play lists, heard Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye. I find it such a haunting song, really beautiful. And it, along with receiving a really gorgeous honest message, was my undoing. I haven't cried in public for Ella in a long while. It's really crazy, and I'd kind of forgotten, just how even a love song can seem so very fitting as a song to cry for your baby to. But I guess, it's all about yearning really in the end, isn't it? Right but also .... not exactly fitting. Just fitting enough to bring the tears to the fore (what any good song should do):
This is our last goodbye
I hate to feel the love between us die
But it's over
Just hear this before I go
You gave me more to live for
More than you'll ever know
This is our last embrace
Must I dream and always see your face?
Why can't we overcome this and more?
Baby, maybe its 'cause you didn't know me at all
Kiss me, please kiss me
But kiss me out of desire, babe, not consolation
Oh, you know it makes me so angry
'Cause I know that in time, I'll only make you cry
this is our last goodbye
Did you say, "No, this can't happen to me"
Did you rush to the phone to call
Was there a voice unkind in the back of your mind
Saying maybe you didn't know him at all
Well, the bells out in the church tower chime
Burning clues into this heart of mine
Thinking so hard on her soft eyes
And the memories offer signs that it's over
Over...
But my tears were short. For there was Lolly, eating the crayons and 'colouring in' nothing in particular on the picture she'd been given by the waitress. Ahhhh, back to reality. For this is my reality for now.
Later on in the day, we met up with the LGBB's aunt and uncle. They arrived with a beautiful native plant (a grevillea) for us to commemorate Ella's fourth birthday. There is nothing quite like seeing your family enjoy your baby, I have decided/discovered. Just pure, lost-in-the-moment joy of each others' company.
Today more than any, I noticed the fun my brother and SIL had just being with the LGBB. Of course, it gave Daddy good leverage ("Come for the company, stay and assist me to lay the flooring")... Just kidding. It had been prearranged that we needed to get this done and there's nothing quite like things all coming together far sooner than you'd hoped but converging on an important day is there? So it was lovely to have them over as an excuse to a) see them and b) inch just a tad closer to fixing the kiddy unsafe bomb site which is the home we are moving to in five short days *gulp*
The years celebrating and honouring what today means for Steve and I (and increasingly as the years go on, obviously Lolly too) are beginning to take shape. One thing that has remained consistent so far, though, is the lead-up being far harder to ride than the actual day itself. So I get to today and I can joke, I can be 'normal' (for what it's worth), I can even catch myself by surprise realising I hadn't thought about Ella for the past half hour *that I am aware of* My energy was even, I wasn't sad. I feel exhausted, though, and perhaps this is a taste of future birthday anniversaries - a day where I'm not flooded with tears, not overly upset that people close to me either have forgotten altogether or at least been remiss in mentioning they were thinking of her (for it is not me/us I want them to think of, it is her) bar noticing that that's exactly what has happened again, none of the past things I would previously have fretted wasted energy over. Just even. Quiet. Reflective. Confirming to myself that despite what my narky niggly 'voice in the back of my mind' says to me sometimes, I have grown and changed since Ella's last birthday.
It's a nice place to be. It feels like a safe place to be, where I'm headed.
And to anyone who sent emails, cards, messages... I just don't think you can ever really understand how much it means to both Steve and me for you to offer that bit of yourselves in that moment. It's far more than others are capable of. So, THANK YOU. I can't properly repay the gesture but I hope in some small way the care you show is paid forward.
Ms Mushy from Melodrama, signing out *sheepish wave, exit stage left... tripping over cords dorkily, waving*
