A Poem I'd Like to Share

One of my friends that I met on Diana's website (mem.com) emailed me a poem I know it's a little deep but my life has never been the same since Diana became an angel almost nine months ago. It'll give you a little in site of how your sister/aunt/cousin feels everyday. The poem is a little long but it's just how I feel:

“From the Heart of a Bereaved Mother”
By an unknown author

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 and Mother’s Day.

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 at 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 my daughter’s death as if it were an everyday, commonplace activity, but yet realizing it has become a part of my "normal" every day life.

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your daughter's memory and her birthday and survive these days. And trying to find the right balloon that fit's the occasion of Happy Birthday?

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special my daughter 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 daughter.

Normal is making sure that 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. 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 daughter is unnatural.

Normal is realizing I DO cry everyday.

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 daughter is in heaven, but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why she was 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 two children or one, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that my daughter 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 daughter.

Normal is asking God why he took your daughter’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. 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".

I Love you All,

Joyce