My New Normal

Today would be Jonathan's 6 month birthday. Six months is such a fun stage with the smiles they begin to share. This poem is one that I saw posted elsewhere with permission to reprint and make more personal. As I read it, I truly identified with it and thought I'd pass it along. It gives good insight to what is happening with someone who has lost a baby.

Finding My New Normal

Normal for me is waking up every day, praying that this is all a bad dream.
Normal for me is going through my day, knowing that this is not what I had planned.
Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile knowing that someone important is missing from all the important events in my family's life.
Normal is having new friends, that also share a similar loss, because many of my 'old' friends have stopped calling, because they don't know what to say.
Normal is seeing a bouquet of beautiful flowers, and then when I smell their fragrance, I am reminded once again of Jonathan's death.
Normal is feeling like I can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming.
Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand 'what ifs' and 'why didn’t I’s' go through my head constantly.
Normal is reliving the day Jonathan died continuously through my eyes, mind and heart.
Normal is having continually being busy so I don’t have to think about how my life is so different.
Normal is staring at every baby who looks like he would be Jonathan's age and then thinking of the age he would be now and not being able to imagine it. And then wondering why it matters, he never will be.
Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind because of my broken heart.
Normal is telling the story of Jonathan's death as if it were an everyday common place event, 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 having some people afraid to even mention Jonathan’s name in fear of upsetting me.
Normal is making sure that others remember him.
Normal is that after Jonathan's death, everyone else goes on with their lives but we continue to grieve his loss forever.
Normal is having those closest to me, not understand that.
Normal is listening to people compare events in their life to your loss. Losing a parent or grandparent is horrible, but losing your own child is unnatural. And, let's not talk about your pets death...
Normal is trying not to cry all day, because I know my mental health and my family's survival depends on it.
Normal is realizing that I do cry everyday and it is ok.
Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone.
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 Jonathan is in Heaven, but hearing people try to make up excuses as to why babies are taken from their mothers is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to me.
Normal is being too tired to care if I cleaned the house, did the laundry or if there is any food in the house.
Normal is wondering this time whether I am going to say I have three children or four. Yet when I say I have three children to avoid the situation of explaining his death, I feel horrible as if I have betrayed Jonathan.
Normal is asking God why he took my child's life instead of mine?
Normal is feeling that only death can take away my pain.
Normal is knowing I will never get over Jonathan's death. Not in a day, nor the rest of my life.
Normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for me, so that everyone else around me will think I am "normal."