What is "NORMAL"?

Everyone talks about the "new normal" after you lose a child. I don't believe "normal" will ever return to my house after my 18 year old son, Max, was killed in a car crash on 8/6/10. "Normal Died With Max", and this blog is about the life I have without him.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Dream Again

Yesterday I went to my therapist for a 'check-up'.  I've been drifting the past year or so, waiting to see if purpose would just drop in my lap.  I am no longer in the 'active grieving' stage, firmly established in acceptance.  I just have no direction.  I am a stay-at-home mom with no children at home.  My house stays clean.  I take care of my dogs and my husband and myself as best I can.  I have freedom to enjoy many friendships. 

I am available if any of my aging parents ask for help and waiting on a someday-grandchild or two.  So is that enough?  Waiting, drifting?  I suppose it had to be that way for a time.  A time where I was emerging from the long storm started on 8/6/10.  This is the way I had been used to living.



However yesterday, she told me it was time to lift my head and start dreaming again.  I just looked at her blankly.  Dreaming?  Part of me felt fearful.  Did moving forward mean leaving Max in the past?  Honestly, that is partly true - he physically is in my past, but I also carry him with me everywhere I go, just as I do Wesley and Sammie.  She asked about where I saw my life at 47 when I was 27.  I guess I hadn't thought about it.  And when I look 20 years into the future now, I don't want to see years of my life spent waiting.

We've had a lot of storms in Kansas the past month, and for some reason I noticed the birds after these storms.  Even before the last clouds cleared, they were already out, singing their songs and going about their business.   So I have lifted my head and am ready to re-join the flock of life.


We brainstormed a bit, came up with some small ideas, some opportunities I already have going on in my life.  She told me to expand what my mind could conceive for an actual life now.  Dreams?  I have my knee issues that will surely eat up my summer, but then what?   What else ... indeed? 
 

1 comment:

Marsha said...

Your post reminded me of a song by contemporary Christian artist, Plumb, called Drifting
There's a sea of lonely swimming sad
Looking just for an arm to grab
I don't need to understand
I'm just lending you the two that I have

(Chorus)
You might be drifting
And can't find the shore
So hopeless and all alone
The waves are crashing all around you
Just when you've lost the will to live
You see the sun

Can we make a searchlight
From all the bridges that we burn?
Do you see a rescue?
Or a deeper kind of hurt?

Who could love you,
Who could hold you?
I'd swim across the sea
You don't have to be alone
Where the shallow gets so deep

I am hurt and nearly drown
(Open up your eyes)
I cry for help you turned around
(Open up your eyes)
Farther from the shore
Or you'll be farther from the shore

I am hurt and nearly drown
(You're not alone)
I cry for help you turned around
(I'm not letting go)
Farther from the shore
So you're not farther from the shore