I'm not a deeply religious person, and rationally, I don't usually believe in signs. Yet, from time to time, I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something.
It's usually the kind of thing where maybe I keep seeing the same person in uncanny places. Or a lucky number shows up on the deli ticket. Or maybe a song you have an emotional connection to comes on the radio on route to a first date.
Well, today I felt like the universe was trying to speak to me on my way home from work.
As I daydreamed my way through traffic, I started thinking of Ellis. This is not unusual in and of itself because she comes to my mind on a regular basis. What was unusual, however, were the feelings that came rushing back along with my thoughts.
Imagine seeing a really terrifying movie for the fifteenth time. It's still probably scary, but it just doesn't have the same emotional punch it did the first or second time you saw it. That's how my feelings toward Ellis run these days. I'm still obviously filled with regret and sadness about losing our daughter, but for the most part, I've put those demons to bed. My feelings are no longer fresh or raw, and when I think back to that time, it feels like I'm looking at a different life through a telescope.
Except that's not how I felt today when I sat in traffic. For just a moment, it felt like I got punched in the stomach all over again, and it could have been two and half years ago in that hospital room right that very second. As I said, it only lasted a moment, and then it was gone. It was just enough to make me shake my head, and think, "Hmmm, that's odd."
I let my mind wander to other things, but the news and commercials on the radio kept reminding me of Ellis. Small, insignificant things that probably wouldn't even make sense to anyone else but me. For example, there was a story about a missing baby, which reminded me of Casey Anthony, which was on the news in my hospital room the day I delivered Ellis, so the conversation I had with my mother while that news story was on TV came flooding through my mind.
But the real kicker happened when I was stopped at a traffic light in front of Madeline's school. I was waiting for the light to turn green, staring blankly at the large delievery truck in front of my car. It took me a minute to even realize it, but right there, in large green lettering, printed on the back of the truck was the word, "Ellis."
It didn't say Ellis Construction or Ellis Landscaping or anything like that....just Ellis.
Now granted, Ellis is a pretty common last name, and I've often seen it attatched to company logos and the like. But keeping in mind the context of my thoughts only ten minutes earlier, and the fact that the truck was right in front of me, and the fact that it didn't say anything but that one, huge, bold-printed word...I took it as a sign.
A sign of what? I don't know. It just felt like for one moment that universe was trying to speak to me.
Ever get a feeling like that?
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