What is normal after your child’s death?
Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile because I constantly realize that someone important is missing.
Normal is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery and knowing that what ever it is, it will never be enough to communicate the way I feel.
Normal is feeling like I can’t sit another minute without getting up and screaming.
Normal is not sleeping because a thousand what if’s & why didn’t I’s go through my head constantly.
Normal is feeling like the world is grey.
Normal is having the TV on the minute I walk into the house to have noise, because the silence is deafening.
Normal is staring at every person who looks like my son ‘s age and thinking of the age he would be now.
Normal is every happy event clouded in sadness.
Normal is trying to run from someone I haven’t seen in a while, so I don’t have to tell them that my child has died.
Normal is lying and saying”oh, he’s fine” when they do catch me..and half way believing it myself.
Normal is fear of my lost child’s birthday as it approaches.
Normal is crying when I see something at the shopping mall my child would love.
Normal is knowing that just about everyone is afraid to mention my child.
Normal is hoping that others will not forget him.
Normal is the anger I feel when people compare any other kind of loss to this loss.
Normal is knowing my mental health constantly dangles by a thread.
Normal is crying for what may appear to be no reason.
Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone.
Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how I feel with other parents who have lost a child.
Normal is wondering this time whether I am going to say I have two children or one, because I will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining. And yet when I say you have one child to avoid that problem, I feel horrible because I have betrayed him.
Normal is avoiding McDonald’s and other places he loved that break my heart.
Normal is knowing I will never “get over” this loss, in a day or a million years.
And last of all, Normal is hiding all the things that have become “normal” for me to feel, so that everyone around me will think that I am “normal”. …but my “normal” is gone forever.
Author Unknown
While these are very valid emotions and reactions… we CAN find a place of understanding and acceptance where we will again discover the joys of life.