My "New Normal"

I don't know who wrote tthe following poem, but I found it last night while reading another Mother's blog. Her daughter was born just a few days after Mia passed away and never left the hospital. You can read her story at the link above. I could tell as I read that we don't have a lot in common except that we both lost a baby girl in '06 and were blessed with anothe precious little girl in January of this year. As I read this poem I couldn't get over how well many of the lines described my own thoughts. This mother's new normal is in many ways the same as mine...so maybe, just maybe, we are all more normal than we feel.

"A Bereaved Mother's New Normal"
From the heart of a bereaved Mother...

This is now what "normal" is...

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, July 4th and Easter.

Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable at a funeral than a wedding or birthday party.. yet feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything.Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand 'what ifs' and 'why didn't I's' go through your head constantly.

Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away.Normal is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have noise, because silence is deafening.

Normal is staring at every baby who looks like she is my baby's age and then thinking of the age she would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen.

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 child's death as if it were an everyday, commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how awful it sounds, and yet realizing it has become a part of my "normal".Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and their birthday and survive these days, trying to find the balloon or flag that fits the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special that reminds me of my baby. Thinking how she would have loved it, but how she's not here to enjoy it.

Normal is having some people afraid to even mention my baby.Normal is making sure that others remember her.Normal is that after the funeral is over, everyone else goes on with their lives but we will continue to grieve our loss forever.

Normal is weeks, months and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse sometimes, not better.Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have lossed a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the remotest part of the earth away from you - it doesn't compare. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural.Normal is trying not to cry all day, because I know my mental health depends on it.

Normal is realizing I do cry everyday.Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone, but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child.Normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and all over the USA, but never having met any of them face to face.Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying together over our children and our new lives.Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God. "God may have done this because..." I love God. I know that my baby is in Heaven, but hearing people try to make up excuses as to why healthy babies are taken from this earth is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.

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

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have two children or one, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that my baby is in Heaven. Yet when you say you have one child to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your baby.

Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours and asking if there even is a God.Normal is knowing I will never get over the loss, in a day or a million years.

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

~Author Unknown~