All of the why’s and damnations would come later. For now, I was witnessing my husband holding his baby for the last time. I stared at him intently as I sat next to him. His entire face was wet and swollen with tears and emotion. The quiet, gentle, geeky teenager who became the funny, gorgeous man I married, now looking like a broken little boy.
“I just thought if I could get her outside and let her feel the sun, she would be alright,” he looked at me imploringly, almost as if by saying it and meaning it hard enough it might change things and allow her to come back. “If I could just hold her, outside, out of here…”
from "Into The Bliss: Having & Holding Ellanor", by K.A. Whatman
It's Steve's 40th today.
This means he has devoted half of his life to me, and to our two daughters. He's amazing.
He is gentle, mild, extremely funny and intelligent. And he allowed me to convince him to cut off his mullet and stop wearing the moccassins in public.
Thank. God.
Trawling through photos that his parents gave me last week, I found a photo of us with Ella I have never seen before. My breath caught in my throat.
 |
| Two weeks old, only two weeks left unbeknownst to us |
As I was going through our own collection to look for all the shots Steve had been in, I found photos I've seen before - of him, being him... being goofy, being an uncle, grinning widely with our siblings' children - and this time, I checked the dates. It struck me how often we had photos taken of us, smiling and involved, so soon after Ellanor's passing.
It seems life really does go on, regardless of whether you're in pain. It's ludicrous how soon the gap is expected to close over.
And this man has made damn sure that as much as he could, our nieces' and nephews' experience of us was as seamless as he could make it. Even during our trials.
For instance, this was taken on Boxing Day - what should have been our first with Ella.
Yes, he is really one in a million. To me and to the family who love him.
I made him this. Look out for the chicken feet slippers that he "HAD to have"....:
