"New" Normal

I was chatting with someone at church who asked me how I was doing and I said that my parents had left the Friday after the funeral and she said oh so now you're trying to figure out what the "new normal" is. This was a perfectly fine thing to say but it did get me thinking. Is my "new" normal that different than the old. For someone who loses someone (like a husband) who was such a presence in that person's life, the new normal is very different. But sadly Joshua never lived with us outside the womb. In a lot of ways, especially compared to a situation where we would have been bringing him home and would have had a newborn to care for, our new normal is very much like the old (except that I'm off of work for a few weeks).


Thinking about this makes me a little sad because it reminds me how little time we had with Joshua and because in some ways I wish my life was changed more by him. We have the memories of the pregnancy and the time in the hospital and some tangible things to help us remember Joshua and I can't imagine a day going by without thinking about him, but on the outside we look a lot like we did last year at this time - we're back to a family of 4 here on earth. But on the inside, the new normal is new. Grieving and loss are very new. My day to day life may be the same as before in a lot of ways but the ways I've seen God work and love that people have shown us has changed my relationships and my outlook. I also feel like I have a new identity of a mom who has lost a child.


There has been some outward "newness" too. I was thrilled at the grocery store the other day to be able to talk about my 3 kids without the cashier asking enough questions to learn that one of my children is deceased. (I said something about how all my kids were born within a day of a holiday - Halloween, New Years, and Thanksgiving.) It was great to be able to talk about my "new" situation (having 3 kids) without going into the whole story. Part of the new normal that is different will be figuring out how to answer the "how many kids do you have?" question. Being someone who likes to give precise answers and who, like most moms, doesn't want to ever gloss over the existence of my child in heaven, I don't think it will be easy to just say 2. I'm sure the answer will depend on the person, the situation, and my mood at the time.