today would have been eli's due date.
it's a day i have reluctantly anticipated- obviously full of sorrow and tender emotions. my heart, which i have spent the past few months trying to piece back together, is of course, still so very broken.
since august i have thought about what this day would look like. i thought i would go to our special place at the beach and spread some of eli's ashes- a spot he could forever be with roo and i could return to whenever i needed to be with them. i thought i would go to the forest and find the most beautiful tree to place one single chrismas ornament on. something that would bring a smile to the faces of all passersby. i thought i might be able to keep it together. carry on with this day, go about it all without turning into a huge mess, but instead, i have crawled back into bed and don't know that i really want to get back out.
perhaps though, today is the crux. that the bumps from here on out will not be as enormous as the ones previous. tomorrow, no longer will i be anticipating the day that could have been. i wont be fixated on the worry and over-thinking and unknowingness of december 1st. i'm not naive enough to think there wont still be hard days, that today is in any way the end of my journey, but i can feel a shift - like there is a rush of fresh air about to flood in, and for the first time in a long time, i am not worried about what comes next. for now, that's enough.
--
the day we found out that eli could not survive, i asked jeff if he could take some photos of us at the beach. i wanted to always have a beautiful memory of the time i was given to carry him with me. jeff shot them on film and just got the negatives developed a few days ago. after he scanned them in, he had planned to edit out some of the dust spots, but i couldnt let him do it. the imperfectness of them is perfect for what these pictures mean to me