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 trying to decide what to do for Birthdays, X-mas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Valentine's Day, July 4th. Or not to do anything, or know if you’ll ever feel like doing anything for those days again.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything anymore.

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 the accident continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away.

Normal is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have noise, because the silence is deafening.

Normal is staring at every boy who looks like he is J.T.’s age. And then thinking of the age he would be now. Then wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen.

Normal is every happy event in your life always being backed up with
sadness lurking close behind, because of the hole in your heart.

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 your "normal."

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child’s memory and their birthdays and survive these days. And trying to find the balloon or flag that fits the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special he loved. Thinking how he would love it, but how he is not here to enjoy it.

Normal is having some people afraid to mention my son’s name.
Normal is making sure that others remember him.

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, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have lost a child. Nothing compares.
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 taking pills, and trying not to cry all day, because you know your mental health depends on it.

Normal is realizing you do cry everyday.

Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone but someone stricken with grief over the loss of their child.

Normal is not listening to people make excuses for
God.
"God may have done this because…"

I know he is in "heaven," but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why a fantastic young man 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 the laundry or if there is any food.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have three children or two, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that he is dead.
And yet when you say you have two children to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed the dead child.

Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours and asking if there even is a God.

Normal is knowing you will never get over this loss, not in a day nor a million years.

Normal is having therapists agree with you that you will never "really" get over the pain and that there is nothing they can do to help you because they know only bringing back your child back from the dead could possibly make it "better."

Normal is learning to lie to everyone you meet and telling them you are fine. You lie because it makes others uncomfortable if you cry. You've learned it's easier to lie to them than to tell them the truth that you still feel empty and it's probably never going to get any better -- ever.
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."



The above poem was originally written by Tara and Heath Carey after they lost their daughters Violet and Iris in 2002 when natural gas caused their apartment to explode. I have taken the liberty to rewrite and change parts of the poem.

I keep trying to communicate my feelings of being left behind. Struggling with the loneliness of my loss. Words cant describe the emotions of this emptiness, it’s like I got off at the wrong stop or maybe missed the bus all together. Loss, I know in the beginning there were others here with me. We were together sharing pain, tears and strength but it seems as though I just turned around for a second and everyone was gone. Perhaps they have gone back to the path of living. Back to the everyday grind of putting this behind them and forging on. I can’t blame them really, I have done it a time or two myself, but not this time. This time I want the memories and pain in front of me, where I can see it, where it enters the room before me and tells the world J.T. Crow was here, he was beautiful and he will live on somehow, even if part of me is sacrificed in doing so. I don’t mind really it seams to fit. We sacrifice so much anyway in Motherhood. Our bodies, our freedom, our sleep. We sit through basketball, football, and soccer games where no one ever scores and cheer like it’s a championship. We celebrate when a word is spelled right or multiplication is conquered or a room is cleaned, we watch goofy cartoon movies and actually enjoy them and when we can’t do all of those mundane, day to day things, we miss them, we long for them. So I don’t mind being stuck here because occasionally it feels like he is with me, here where it is still my job to honor and represent him, no I don’t mind at all, lonely or not I am grateful.

Yesterday on cnn.com there was a report about John Travolta and the loss of his sixteen year old son. That story inspired other parents to tell their stories of the loss of a child. Reading through them is sad, however in this stage of grief for me I actually found it comforting that there are other people in this world experiencing what I am experiencing. It makes grief a less lonely place to know that others are struggling, remembering, and holding on to the exact same pain. Even though the losses happened in different ways the feeling of loss is the same. One comment on the page said something like “A child who looses its parents is called an orphan, a woman who looses her husband is called a widow but there is no word for a woman who looses her child because words can’t describe the pain… “ Words don’t do it justice, it’s true, but there is comfort in knowing that someone somewhere understands.

Here is the link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/09/child. ... index.html

This Holiday season my family and I had an opportunity to visit with the Presgrove family of Jackson Tennessee. It was perhaps a pilgrimage seeking understanding. This family was also affected by the Rhino when Grant Presgrove who was a passenger on one suffered severe leg injuries less than one month after J.T. was killed. Grant’s loving family invited us into there home and lives, complete strangers bonded by the same tragedy. The aftershock that this accident has had on the Presgrove family continues to mount yet they find a way to speak out and fight against the instability and miss design of the Yamaha Rhino, making the bond I feel with them even stronger. Each and every person I have met along this journey has given me strength and hope that change is possible with all of us fighting together for one purpose…To save lives.

Christmas From The Heart


by Judy Burnette



I heard your voice in the wind today
and I turned to see your face;
The warmth of the wind caressed me
as I stood silently in place.

I felt your touch in the sun today
as its warmth filled the sky;
I closed my eyes for your embrace
and my spirit soared high.

I saw your eyes in the window pane
as I watched the falling rain;
It seemed as each raindrop fell
it quietly said your name.

I held you close in my heart today
it made me feel complete;
You may have died...but you are not gone
you will always be a part of me.

As long as the sun shines...
the wind blows...
the rain falls...
You will live on inside of me forever
for that is all my heart knows.