Today...

Today I decided to go for an early morning run. It's 11 months since Ella's accident and I just wanted to spend some time alone. I've been pushing myself to keep going; through the build up to Christmas and the day itself. Today I just wanted to stop pushing, to sit somewhere beautiful and think of my girl. I put on my running shoes, my music and hit the road. I ran alongside the sea for about 20 minutes until I arrived at an outlook I had found the day before. 

As I sat watching the sea, my heart aching and full of love for my girl, I noticed a family walking down to the rocks. They were leading an elderly woman who had her right arm in a sling. They walked slowly, guiding her over the rocks, around the pools that had been left when the tide had washed out much earlier in the morning. They walked to the edge, where the glistening sea gently lapped the edge of the land. It was slow going. With the early sun shining on the sea I couldn't see their faces, only the dark shape of their bodies against the background of the water, but I could guess why they were there.

I didn't want to intrude on such a precious and private moment but I couldn’t help watching. I held my breath as the family knelt down to prepare themselves. As one of them threw the ashes of the Husband / Father / Grandfather into the sea, I sobbed. It was a beautiful and poignant moment - the ashes of a man, well-loved, catching the wind and then gently, peacefully settling onto the water - and will remain forever in my memory.

You see, Ellie's ashes sit in a pretty container in her room. My mind cannot go there and I'm not yet ready to do anything with them. I don't believe that any of us are!

As the family made their way back over the rocks I thought about how brave that elderly woman was. It was a hard walk for her but she was determined, with the help of her family, to do what she felt she needed to do.

I was sitting a little way from where the family had parked their cars but the daughter-in-law of the man who had passed must have seen I was crying. She walked up to me and sat down beside me. I apologised for her loss, we sat quietly and then I told her about mine. She was sad. She started to ask, "How ......?" and then she stopped. She knew that it didn't matter how it had happened, only that it had. We shared a little of our sorrow - a loved one gone after a "good innings" and a little girl lost just before her 10th birthday. 

I wanted to go to the widow and hug her, but I didn't want to upset her further (and I was all sweaty from my run), so instead I told her daughter-in-law and her son - who had, by now, come up to me as well - that I thought their Mom was so very brave. I hope they told her.

They left, I cried. I asked Ella to show that she was with me today - and she did. In the yellow ribbon I found in the garden. It had fallen off F's bag. I have walked that way through the garden many times in the last few days but not seen it.

In the design I found when we decided to each have a holiday henna tattoo. It's exactly the same as one I had been considering as a real tattoo.

In the fun day we had on the beach, and the memories that we shared.

At the end of the day I made my way back to the same point I had been at this morning; I wanted to take a pic from where I had been sitting of the rocks the family had gathered on. The lighting is completely different but the memory is there...

xoxo

These two braved the chilly wind and came with me this evening.