Well, it's officially here. Today is what should have been Kailee's due date. No one ever tells you-- when they give you that due date-- that things could turn out badly. No one tells you that instead of a day full of joyful anticipation, it could be one filled with sadness and tears. We should have had the nursery ready, the baby showers would have been done, I would be finishing up work stuff in anticipation of being off for 2 months. None of that is happening today. Instead, I plan on running by JoAnne's Fabric store to get some pretty pink ribbon to decorate my baby's headstone. I picked out 2 special books before work this morning to read to her at her graveside--- "Love You Forever" and "The Ladybug Girl." That's what I'm doing on my daughter's due date.
As I'm at work today, I've made everyone well aware of what today means. They have been prepped for emotional breakdowns and boughts of anger. I feel neither of those. I feel completely numb. Not something I would have thought I would feel, but I do. I look around at people doing "normal" things and it amazes me that nothing is "normal" for me.
We ordered Kailee's headstone. It's not fair that the first headstone I have ever ordered is for a daughter I never knew.
I broke down last week. Friday was a terribly emotional day for me. I heard about another mother who was being induced today, and it sent me over the edge. I cried and cried all afternoon. I never thought of other babies being born on my angel's day.
So, I sit here now realizing that my normal is different. I found a poem that really made a lot of sense to me:
Author Unknown
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 reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind.
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 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 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 my baby's memory and her birthday and survive these days.
Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special that my baby would have loved, but how she is not here to enjoy it.
Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby.
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 child is unnatural.
Normal is realizing I do cry everyday.
Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone, but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child.
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 baby is in heaven, but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why babies were taken from this earth is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.
Normal is wondering this time how many children you will tell a stranger that you have, 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 no children to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your bab.
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”.
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