Our New "Normal"

MissingMyMelody&Mommy · **Posted:** Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:20 pm

I got this as a bulletin from another grieving mom on myspace (Tonya) and wanted to share it with you all. I hope you don't mind Tonya. *hugs*

It is amazing what can become "normal" to us...

Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Christmas, birthday,Valentine's day, and Easter.

Normal is that extra chocolate Easter bunny sitting on the counter because you always get your children a chocolate bunny and this year you still bought one for the one who is not here.

Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child.

Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral and being at the cemetery. Yet, feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers, see that casket, and all the crying people.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming cause you just don't like to sit through church anymore. And yet feeling like you have more faith and belief in God than you ever have had before.

Normal is going to bed feeling like your kids who are alive got cheated out of happy cheerful parents and instead they are stuck with sober, cautious people.

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your families' life.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand 'what if's' and 'why didn't I's' go through your head constantly.

Normal is having the TV on the minute you wake up and the last thing .. you go to sleep at night,the need for noise because the silence is deafening.

Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind because of the hole in my heart.

Normal is telling the story of your babies death as if it were an everyday common place activity and then gasping in horror at how awful it sounds.

And yet realizing it has become part of our normal.

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and their birthday and survive those days. And trying to find the balloon or flag that fits the occasion.

Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is disliking jokes about death, funerals. Bodies being referred to as cadavers when you know they were once someone's loved one.

Normal is being impatient with everything, but someone stricken with grief over the loss of their child.

Normal is feeling a common bond with friends in England, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, and all over the USA, but yet never having met any of them face to face.

Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother and meeting for coffee and talking and crying together over our children and our new lives.And worrying together over our living children.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned house or did laundry or if there is any food in the house.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have 2 or 3 children because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that one of them is in heaven. And yet when you say only 2 to avoid that problem you feel horrible as if you have betrayed that child.

And last of all normal is hiding all the things that have become normal for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal".

These things are what is 'normal' for me now

Cindy · **Posted:** Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:57 am

So sad but so true.
Hugs, Cindy

JANE_E · **Posted:** Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:58 am

"Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child."

This is me tonight. and all the rest of the "normal" things are also me. Pretending, always pretending........... but I'm afraid to tell anyone except all of you what I'm really feeling or thinking.............

je

Barbara · **Posted:** Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:13 am

Thank you for sharing that Crystal it is so true!!!!
love and {{{{hugs}}}}
Barbara

Tonya · **Posted:** Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:35 am

Nope, I don't mind at all Crystal. I found that on MySpace and when I read it, every work rang true to my broken heart.

I thank God that I have each and every one of you in my life. I honestly don't know what I would do without you all.

I love you,
~Tonya~

Drea · **Posted:** Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:44 am

Several of these are so true... it's very sad. Thank you for sharing this.

Our New "Normal"

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