someone i know recently lost her baby too, and had this posted on her blog. i've changed some and also added some of my own.
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, Valentine's Day, July 4th and Easter.
Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with 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 if's & 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 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 her birthday and survive these days. And trying to find the balloon or flag that fit's the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.
Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special my baby loved. Thinking how she would love it, but how she is not here to enjoy it.
Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby.
Normal is making sure others remember her.
Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives, but we 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 lost a child. NOTHING.
Normal is taking pills, and trying not to cry all day, because I know my mental health depends on it.
Normal is realizing I do cry everyday.
Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, bodies being referred to as cadavers, when you know they were once someone's loved one.
Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone
Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child.
Normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands 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, 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..." hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why healthy babies were 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.
Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have one child or two, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that my baby is in heaven. And 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 this loss, in a day or a million years.
Normal is avoiding my once loved shows, law and order & CSI because I just dont want to see the bodies...
Normal is feeling so out of place during halloween, because its my favorite holiday, and now I hate all the decorations of coffin and skeletons.
Normal is constant headaches and feeling sick...
Normal is knowing I need help, because I can't do this on my own.
Normal is feeling guilty everytime I have a good day.
Normal is not being able to get over the anger.
Normal is knowing I will never get used to visiting my daughter at "the baby garden".
Normal is worrying about how other people are dealing with all of this, probobly just so I dont have to worry about myself.
Normal is too real of dreams.
Normal is feeling like I can never do enough to honor her.
Normal is not being able to show the same love for her as I do for my son.
Normal is a quiet hatred for god and church, but wishing I could look at life and death in the same positive light as most believers.
Normal is never having a complete family picture.
Normal is always trying to include her in family time.
Normal is not wanting people to worry about me, but needing them to.
Normal are my mood swings that push my family and friends away.
Normal is knowing that you're not alone, and feeling terrible about it.
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".
RIP - avery, my beautiful angel. gone but not forgotten.
