Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Basket Case
This is one of the best examples of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the Richardson household. Don't ask me what on earth my daughter was doing when she decided that a plastic play grocery basket made a nice helmet. Don't ask me what possessed her to continually wear it while bouncing on her zebra. Don't ask because I simply could not give you any sort of answer. Kerrigan is as Kerrigan does. It wasn't only her name...it was a way of life. And in her way of life, baskets make perfectly good helmets!
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
What's Normal Now?
What is Normal Now?
NORMAL is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Christmas, birthdays, Valentine's Day, and Easter.
NORMAL is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral than a wedding or a birthday party. Yet, feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers, see the casket, and all the crying people.
NORMAL is feelin glike you can't sit through another minute without screaming because you just don't like to sit through church anymore, and yet, at the same time, feeling like you have more faith in God than you had before.
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 is not sleeping because a thousand "what if's" go through your head constantly.
NORMAL is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have some "noise" because the silence is deafening.
NORMAL is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday common event and then gasping in horror at how awful it sounds, and yet realizing it has become part of normal conversation.
NORMAL is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and their birthday and surviving those days, and trying to fin a balloon or flag that fits the occassion. "Happy Birthday"? Not really!
NORMAL is a new friendship with a bereaved parent and meeting over coffee and talking and crying together over your chilren and worrying together over the surviving children.
NORMAL is being too tired to care if you paid your bills, cleaned your house, did the laundry, or if there is food in the house.
NORMAL is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have 4 or 5 children because you will never see this person again, and is it worth explaining that one of them has passed away. And yet, when you say 4 children to avoid the problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your child.
NORMAL is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think you are "NORMAL."
NORMAL is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Christmas, birthdays, Valentine's Day, and Easter.
NORMAL is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral than a wedding or a birthday party. Yet, feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers, see the casket, and all the crying people.
NORMAL is feelin glike you can't sit through another minute without screaming because you just don't like to sit through church anymore, and yet, at the same time, feeling like you have more faith in God than you had before.
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 is not sleeping because a thousand "what if's" go through your head constantly.
NORMAL is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have some "noise" because the silence is deafening.
NORMAL is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday common event and then gasping in horror at how awful it sounds, and yet realizing it has become part of normal conversation.
NORMAL is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and their birthday and surviving those days, and trying to fin a balloon or flag that fits the occassion. "Happy Birthday"? Not really!
NORMAL is a new friendship with a bereaved parent and meeting over coffee and talking and crying together over your chilren and worrying together over the surviving children.
NORMAL is being too tired to care if you paid your bills, cleaned your house, did the laundry, or if there is food in the house.
NORMAL is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have 4 or 5 children because you will never see this person again, and is it worth explaining that one of them has passed away. And yet, when you say 4 children to avoid the problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your child.
NORMAL is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think you are "NORMAL."
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