The New Normal

“You will find it’, they say to me.  A New Normal will emerge.  Time will filter the normal you know into the normal that will become.

Maybe.

The great storm has gentled a bit.  I can actually tolerate a tender memory sparked by a bit of trivia.  The deep and gut-wrenching ache is less frequent, the tears more under control.

Our bedroom wasn’t as cold this morning though I was pierced through by admitting that there just isn’t ‘anymore’.

No looks that spoke above the power of words, no phone calls on the way home from the range just to tell me when he would be home.  He won’t call to me from another room, just to make certain that I am close by.  Bob will never say, “Patty, I love you.”   I won’t feel his hand take mine for no reason except to touch one another.  Never again.

In the hospital room, we told him.  We said all the right things.  We were loving and gentle and grieving beyond what I thought humanly possible.  We touched him and our tears fell–mine wetting his face.

Did he hear us?  Did he know?  God, how I wish I could be assured of that.  That assurance is impossible.

This is the 25th day since the New Normal began.  I don’t like it.  I want what was before.   That other Normal had clutter,  annoyances that vexed us equally.  Our differences were strong.  We worked to keep our marriage unbroken and to heal what we could–tolerate what would not heal.  Now all those differences seem like wisps.

Without my children and my grandchildren I would not care to find a New Normal.  That wouldn’t matter.  They are strong and positive, loving and supporting.  My family is the marker, the definition of why life is important.  Now my need is to keep them close, to heal old hurts.   Maybe that is where the New Normal awaits.