The Week in Pictures – January 29 – February 5, 2012

01/30/12: Went for a hike with the kids. As always, they were being silly.

01/31/12: Another hike...glad we caught the sunset!

02/01/12: I realize that I take a crazy number of picture of my dogs. But this was so cute, I had to include it. We went to the park and were playing fetch. I loved the way the setting sun was reflecting off his coat!

02/02/12: It was my precious boy's birthday...can't believe he's 12! His one desire was to go co-karting. I couldn't get many good pics, because the lighting was not very good! But...here's an attempt.

02/03/12: Some cattails poking through the fence. I just thought this looked kinda cool.

02/04/12: Spent the day at the high school while Garrett had baseball camp. I was just amusing myself trying new shots. I liked the color contrast in this picture.

02/05/12: Was at my parents' house for the Superbowl...but was not entertained. So I took some pics of my dad's Harley.

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The Week in Pictures

Hello, again! Not a lot to say this week. No play off games, no vacations…pretty uneventful. The weather was gorgeous, making for some lovely days and beautiful sunsets. It certainly doesn’t feel like January.

I could go on about the things that irritate or amuse me – but I don’t want to think that hard. LOL. So, rather than forcing you to read while I drone on…please enjoy this week’s pictures!

01/23/12: Crazy beautiful sunsets this week!

01/24/12: Yet another gorgeous sunset...and another reason to love 5 p.m.!

01/25/12: Days like this are why I love Southern California: clear blue sky, fresh snow on the hills, and 75 degrees. Fabulous!

01/26/12: One more sunset. This street is not too far from my house. I'm not sure if they got a deal on palm trees...but, no matter the reason for all of them, it makes for a cool picture.

01/27/12: Such great weather, I rode the Harley today. Lunch with my daughter was a good excuse to get outside at lunch time! I was parked and saw this beautiful church in my mirror.

01/28/12: Had to spend most of Saturday at a USA Baseball Academy clinic for Garrett. So we took our chairs and relaxed in the sunshine. This is my beautiful stepdaughter, Hailey, soaking up the sun.

01/29/12: Even the dog likes to soak up the sunshine. He was watching the kids play catch in the street.

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Fanatical Fans

What is it about professional and college sports that draws people in? Is the competitive drive so innate that we choose a team and go to battle, whether we really have any personal stake in the game or not? What inspires grown men to paint their faces and bodies and brave freezing temperatures (sometimes shirtless) to show their allegiance to “their” team? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I am a sports fan. I love a good, competitive, entertaining game as much as the next person. But I don’t really have “a team.” Unless it’s a school I went to, or a school a friend’s child goes to, or I am in some way connected to the team…I don’t really care who wins or who loses. I root for the Angels in baseball because that’s the team closest to where we live. We don’t have a pro football team anywhere near – the closest one is in San Diego. As for basketball, we have the Lakers. But, I am kind of anti-Lakers. I dislike the Lakers for a much the same reason I have always disliked the Yankees. I’ve never been one to jump on a bandwagon. But, that’s a whole other post!

I appreciate the beauty of sports…a graceful leap to catch a ball, a runner so smooth they look like a gazelle, footwork that would rival a dancer’s. I marvel at it the same way I marvel at the ballet dancers in Swan Lake, or the figure skaters in the Olympics. But I don’t think I’ll ever understand real fans (which is short for fanatical, you know).

So I asked my husband: what is the deal about professional sports? Why the craziness? His answer? Humans are born with a competitive drive; if you’re not talented enough to actually play, then you watch. If gives people something to take pride in, and it unites them. It gives them something to be loyal to. And when some guy beats the odds and experiences a moment of greatness? Maybe we can’t do it ourselves…but we can witness it. We can experience it with him. And that’s the next best thing. There are always going to be rotten apples but, for the most part, sports bring out the good things in people: strength and drive and sheer will to win. Sports give people something and someone to believe in. I don’t know about you, but that answer satisfies me. I guess I married a pretty smart guy.

As for this week’s pictures…I’ve been slacking. I had already posted up to Wednesday, January 18th. So here are the ones for Thursday – Sunday, most recent first. Enjoy!

01/22/12: Brandon tattooing on a friend...

01/21/12: This is another photo from Florida, since I didn't take a pic today. I thought it was cool how this woman was standing there painting, and the man in the chair had no idea she was painting HIM. LOL.

01/20/12: Well, I slacked again today. No picture from today. But, we were *supposed* to go to Disneyland - so I made today's pic one I took a couple of weeks ago. Loved the way the setting sun lit up the Matterhorn and showed the colors in the leaves.

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On Friendship

“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.” – Robert Southey

Have you ever thought about what the word “friendship” means to you? What, exactly, constitutes friendship? Webster’s dictionary defines a friend as someone who is “known well to another and regarded with liking, affection, and loyalty.” It further states that a friend is “an ally in a fight or cause; a supporter.” I don’t know about you, but those words seem so inadequate when trying to describe how I feel about the group of women I just spent the past weekend with. There were eleven of us, total. (Although that was only part of the group that wished they could be there. Several more were stuck at home.) Our group included women from New York, Florida, Minnesota, Connecticut, Iowa, California, Tennessee and Canada. We have all known each other for years. The kicker? For many of us, this past weekend in Florida was the first time we had ever met.

Many years ago, America Online had message boards: places where you could go and communicate with people on specific topics. Not a chat room, exactly, because it wasn’t “live.” There were groups for animal lovers, scrapbookers, parents of multiples, gay people – you name it, there was a message board group for it. I’m not sure how I stumbled on this particular group. But the board was titled Stay at Home vs. Working Moms. The format was a debate board, and some of the posts were pretty adversarial. I decided one day to stick my toe in the water and opine. I was very quickly (and not very politely) asked to back up my opinion – I can’t even remember now what it was – and elaborate on the few sentences I had worked up the nerve to type. I remember thinking at the time what a bunch of opinionated, bossy bitches these women were. But, the next day, there I was again. Reading. Learning. Joining in. I was required to articulate my opinion – which, in turn, forced me to really think about what that opinion was. These women were well-educated, smart, and so witty that I often found myself giggling hysterically in front of my computer. (Which, at the time, was a huge, clunky, desk top unit. This was 2001, after all.) Since that first post eleven years ago, the knowledge I have gained from this group is incredible.

Some “posters” on that debate board came and went, but there was a core group that hung around. We all went through periods where we posted less frequently – life has a way of getting in the way sometimes. But, until the board was finally shut down for good a few years ago, we could always find each other there. Then, along came Facebook. We all reconnected and formed our own “private” group. There are a little over thirty of us in the group. And that group ended up being the beginning of what has developed into friendships with some of the most extraordinary women I’ve ever known. We began to share things about ourselves more openly. The knowledge that it was just us – no lurkers out there in cyberspace – gave us the freedom to really talk. To really open up and share without fear of some crazy person stalking us or doing weird things with our family photos. Over the course of the past several years – but, especially the past few – we have formed a bond that some people would find odd. We come from so many different walks of life: stay-at-home mothers, teachers, lawyers, writers. Some Republican, some Democrat – but most somewhere in between. We are people who, in our day-to-day lives, would probably never cross paths. I’m pretty sure that I – the Harley-riding, gun-toting probation officer – would not have the opportunity to form a friendship with a church secretary or a high-level financial analyst. But all of those external things don’t matter in this group. What does matter is our loyalty and sincere devotion to one another. We have seen each other through the roller coaster that is life: illnesses, divorces, marriages, remarriages, and deaths. The level of support and love I, personally, received after my son died surpasses anything I’ve ever imagined was possible. A group of remarkable women who live thousands of miles away from me managed to give me more support and friendship than most of the people I see every day.

After the absolute success of this past weekend get-together, we have decided it needs to be a regular thing. There was no awkwardness or discomfort. It truly did feel like a bunch of long-time friends getting together for a few days of relaxation. Everyone is just as articulate and intelligent and funny in person as they are online. I came away from the experience feeling empowered and loved. These beautiful women managed to make me feel completely accepted. I hope I did the same for them.

In a 2002 study at UCLA, researchers studied female friendships and the effect those relationships have on our lives. They found that our emotional and physical health improve when we have close female friends. According to the study, “Women are a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they’re with other women. It’s a very healing experience.” Well, this is not surprising to me. I have just spent four days “healing” with ten of my closest friends!

This week’s pictures are from my trip to Florida. The days that I haven’t managed to take a picture, I’ve filled in with ones taken on my trip. I hope you enjoy them!

01-09-12: Jumping rope in the parking lot, waiting for Dad. I'm still trying to master action shots!

01-10-12: Grandma's (my mom's) 69th birthday dinner.

01-11-12: This was actually taken in Florida...but I didn't have a pic for this day. I was too busy packing!

01-12-12: Leaving Los Angeles! Florida, here I come!

01-13-12: My first time touching the Gulf Coast water!

01-14-12: This was the first time I've seen an alligator not at the zoo! I thought this little dude was cute, with his snaggle teeth. 🙂

01-15-12: This was Bowman's Beach on Sanibel Island. The amount of shells just lying there on the beach was amazing to me. We don't have many shells in Southern California!

01-16-12: I took this in the butterfly house at the Naples Botanical Gardens. Love the colors!

01-17-12: Another pic from the Naples Botanical Gardens. I thought this was a really cute idea for old purses! Quirky and artsy!

01-18-12: I think this is my favorite butterfly picture - yellow is my favorite color!

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Forward March!

I’ll come right out and say it: I really have nothing interesting to write about. I think I’m a fairly interesting person in real life. But here? No so much. Oh well. I committed to it, so I’m doing it.

Today I accomplished something very difficult. Something I have been putting off for more than two years. I gave away some of Ian’s things. I haven’t done it for many reasons. Mostly because 1) it is so painful to go into his room and see the things we picked out just for him that he never had a chance to use and 2) I didn’t want those lovingly-chosen things to end up somewhere “unworthy.” My best friend in the world – a woman who has been absolutely unwaivering in her support of me – is due to give birth to a baby boy in March. I can’t think of someone I would rather give Ian’s things to. It’s odd how attached we can get to “stuff.” Well – not odd for me, really. I’ve always been somewhat of a pack rat: I hyperventilate a little when I throw away shirts with holes in them. You never know when you might need that, right? I’m the one whose heart starts pounding when faced with throwing away a little drawing one of the kids did on a napkin at a restaurant. “Stuff” holds sentimental value to me. So you can imagine how it made my insides feel to be giving up possession of the blankets and pajamas and onesies that held my precious angel. But it had to be done. Still, it felt a little like saying goodbye to him all over again. My friend and I we went through Ian’s room together – not sure I could have done it alone. I held it together pretty well until I started going through the toiletries. I was proud of myself…I was feeling melancholy, but not devastated like I would have a year ago. That is, until I got a whiff of the Mustela baby shampoo I always used on Ian. Then the tears came out of nowhere. Fiercely and quickly. What is it about smells that can evoke such strong memories and emotions? So, once again, my best friend comforted me. And we moved on. Hurdle cleared…forward march!

Here are this week’s pictures, from oldest to most recent:

01/02/12: Walking in the woods with Loki.

01/03/12: Our crazy dog, Freya, loves to try to eat the spray of water coming out of the nozzle. She doesn't care if she gets nailed in the face - she tries to bite it. Makes for some pretty good free entertainment!

01/04/12: Sunset in the suburbs.

01/05/12: Sunrise in the city. I was practicing slow shutter speeds.

01/06/12: My handsome son, Garrett. We went to Disneyland for the day, and I was practicing my portrait photography!

01/07/12: Baseball evaluations for Spring season. Can't believe another busy season is about to start - but looking forward to watching the kids play!

01/08/12: Mother nature at work! I am starting to figure out this shallow depth of field thing.

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A New Direction – Welcome to 2012!

What is it about a brand new year that encourages people to make grand proclamations, set lofty goals, and feel totally on top of the world again (even if it’s only for a few weeks)? Is it the prospect of starting with a clean slate? Is it the opportunity to not necessarily get a “do over”, but a “start over”? I, for one, am all for that. One of my favorite quotes is from Mary Ann Radmacher: “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” Ms. Radmacher is onto something there. It takes courage to keep on going. In that vein, I’m taking this long-neglected blog in a different direction this year.

First, let’s take a look back for those who haven’t read this blog in the past: 2009 was one of the most exciting and heartbreaking of my life. I got married for the first time, gave birth to a gorgeous baby boy, and then lost him to a brain tumor eight weeks later. 2009 is one of those years that will always seem almost surreal to me. 2010 and 2011 have been a blur of heartaches, disappointments, depression, and transitions. Despite my best efforts, both of those years were mostly sadness and turmoil, strung together by occasional happiness. To put it bluntly, 2010 and 2011 sucked. I can say goodbye to those years with no melancholy whatsoever.

So here we are with a chance to start again. To start new and fresh. I feel that, in the last few months, I have made enormous strides to get back on track. To get back to the “me” I have missed so much. I am actually excited to start a new year. I have plans. The biggest thing I have planned is weight loss surgery. After Ian (our son) died, I slowly gained 45 pounds. I think, subconsciously, I was trying to kill myself with food. My blood pressure got high, I had swollen ankles and painful joints, my hips have started hurting. I just kind of checked out of life. So I am taking the required classes and am looking forward to surgery some time in late Spring. I’m excited about having that tool to help me get healthy and active again. I can’t wait to snow board again next winter. I can’t wait to look and feel good again!

Another thing I have planned is to work harder on photography. It’s always been an interest and hobby of mine. I’ve always had a “good eye” for the setup of a picture, but I’ve never taken the time to learn about the mechanics of photography. So, that’s on my agenda for 2012. To that end, I am starting my own “Project 365” (although, since it’s Leap Year, it will be a Project 366). I will be posting a picture a day for the next year. It could be of something I did that day, or a pic of something interesting I saw, or of something completely meaningless that caught my eye. The goal is to make sure I really look at the world every day, and find something to appreciate every day. As part of the project, I’ll post a blog entry every Sunday. The topic could be almost anything. There will be a lot going on in my life, so prepare for some schizophrenic posts. Ha ha. So – I’ve committed: 366 pictures, 52 posts. And here’s today’s:

I'm learning about "depth of field" and experimenting with the settings on my camera. These poinsettias are left over from Christmas and on the porch awaiting their fate. I loved the way the color in the flower caught the sunlight!

 

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Another Halloween…

I can’t help but remember last Halloween. The bone-crushing grief. The depression. I tried so hard to make it a fun time for Garrett – but I just couldn’t get into it. I would not go back to that time for anything in the world. It’s when I think about that time – and read last year’s Halloween entry – that I realize how far I’ve come in this journey. I will admit that I had a really hard day two days ago. Not for any particular reason other than that I just felt sad. I think about Ian every day – but some days it just grips me and I almost can’t breathe because I miss him so much. And I’ve learned to just accept it when I have those days. I don’t make myself feel guilty about staying in bed half the day. I don’t apologize for letting the kids make their own frozen dinners. I just roll with it. What else can I do? As long as I just accept it, and let myself grieve, and cry when I want to, that paralyzed feeling seems to pass more quickly.

Garrett as "Hercules" and Hailey as "Aphrodite."

This year I have actually dressed up twice for Halloween, and gone to two parties. I even put some effort into the kids’ costumes, rather than making Garrett wear a “retread” like last year. So we had Hercules and Aphrodite in our house last night. They looked great! We went to a fantastic party at my friend’s house. Lots of kids dressed up, gorgeous house in the forest, fantastic food, and good company. It is so nice to be actually enjoying parts of my life again!

I still fantasize about having another child to do all this with again. I have enjoyed my kids so much. But I’m beginning to fully accept that it just probably won’t happen for us. It makes my heart ache to think that I’ll never get to hold or nurse or love on another baby. That Brandon and I won’t get to raise a child – from the beginning – together. We are not actively trying to conceive at this point – but we aren’t trying not to, either. So, if it is part of the universe’s plan for us, it will happen.

It makes my head spin to think about how fast time passes by. I remember a year ago, wondering how I’d get through the next hour, or the next day, or the next month. But here I am – over a year has passed since my world was shattered. And sometimes I can’t believe I’m here. Not just surviving – but striving to live again. I want to be the happy, outgoing, optimistic, satisfied person I used to be – but with much more wisdom. Ian would want that for his mom, I think. I miss you beyond words, my sweet Frog Face. I love you to the moon and back a gazillion times.

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The First Year

I miss writing. When I started this blog I figured I wouldn’t have a problem keeping up with it. I don’t know that I have ever really been at a loss for words in my entire life. But lately I just can’t find the words to express myself. I definitely expected to be able to come up with something to write on September 5th, the one-year anniversary of Ian’s death, but I was blank. I couldn’t even come up with a coherent thought that day, let alone a coherent sentence. So, here I sit. Still trying to figure out what it is I want to say.

I think sometimes that I avoid writing because I’m almost afraid to put into words the thoughts that come into my head. I don’t want anyone to think I’m crazy. Then I’ll read a book written by a grieving parent, or I’ll read an article from the Compassionate Friends website, and I realize I’m not all that unique. My thoughts aren’t so abnormal. Maybe I’m not losing my mind. Either that, or we are all crazy.

It’s been a very hard summer for me. I couldn’t help but make comparisons between this summer and last. Last summer I was so happy and so healthy and so blissfully unaware of what the future held. I had no clue that within a few short weeks my life, as I knew it, would be over. This summer I’ve struggled to keep my head above water, it seems. It started with Ian’s birthday in July. And for the next six weeks or so, I felt myself slowly drowning. I was crying less, and was able to get through the day by pretending I was fine. But inside I was coming completely undone. I felt agitated and confused: the thread I was hanging by was stretched to the breaking point. Most of the time, I didn’t even recognize the person I felt like inside. All I could think about was how I wanted my old life back. I wanted the old me back.

Is there such a thing as using “tough love” on yourself? Maybe that’s what I need to do. But, for now, I’m doing better and I’m feeling pretty strong. I’m not sure what the turning point was. Maybe it was getting sick of living in the past. Maybe it was the look of love and concern on my dad’s face when he told me he was worried about me. Maybe it was my sister telling me to “get up and brush yourself off” like she’s been telling our kids to do for almost twenty years. Maybe it was the sadness in my childrens’ eyes when they saw me depressed. Or it could have been the absolute devotion my husband feels toward me, regardless of my mood swings. He gets irritated and angry with me at times…but I have no doubt whatsoever that he loves me and misses the woman he married.

So now, the one-year mark has come and gone. It’s odd, but I almost feel a sense of relief and – strangely enough – pride. I remember one year ago, feeling that I’d never make it through the next hour, or even the next day. I couldn’t imagine getting through a whole year, living with such pain. I couldn’t imagine how life could go on without one of my children. But life has gone on. And maybe with some tough love and prayers, I’ll be able to join the living again. That’s my plan.

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Birthdays…

Today is my 42nd birthday. I feel so melancholy – not at all like celebrating. I think about where I was a year ago today. Pregnant (just six days away from giving birth), happy, full of hope and excitement. I’m trying so hard to get there again – happy and full of hope and excitement, anyway. It doesn’t look like pregnant again is going to happen. I had the HSG test in April – a test where they shoot dye into your tubes to see if they’re open. And the results were that the one tube that was reconnected wasn’t open. Another blow…and one of the many reasons I haven’t written in my blog for so long. I’ve had so many disappointments in my life in the last several months that I just haven’t known what to say.

Ian’s first birthday is next week. I’m trying to think of a way to honor him…a way to mark that day as significant and special. I can’t really think of any way that will make me feel any peace or closure, so I’m leaning toward just taking the day off and spending it with my husband and kids. Maybe we’ll have cupcakes. Maybe we’ll go to a baseball game. All the things we might be doing if Ian were here to celebrate with us.

I often wonder if this pain will ever lessen. I’m getting through the days much easier than I was six months ago. And I have moments of peace and happiness. I have more good days than bad. But sometimes the pain I feel – those times at night when I sit in the recliner…the one I used to nurse Ian in…alone, in the dark of night when everyone else is asleep in bed – that pain is so deep and so crippling I almost can’t breathe. I cry during those times, and sometimes it feels like my heart will stop beating. At those times, I can’t think about anything other than how blissfully happy I was in the past, and how much pain I am in now. Other times I look forward to future happiness…watching my remaining children grow up, spending the rest of my life with my husband.

One of the things that has been so hard for Brandon and I is trying to change our vision of the future. Ian was our plan – we were looking forward to spending the next twenty years raising our son together. And by then we would be ready to retire and sail into our Golden Years. Now we have to come up with another plan. Of course our lives are still wrapped around children…but they will be grown sooner than we are ready for. I have been raising children for the last twenty years…I don’t know how to envision a life without that. I’m a child-centered person, and life without a child seems so bleak at this point. But now I have to wrap my mind around the idea that there will likely be no more children in our future. So…another adjustment for us.

Back to my original thought…birthdays. Mine. Ian’s. What does a birthday mean to me, exactly? I believe that my focus for this year – my 43rd year of life – needs to be on trying to regain some of that contentment I used to feel. Living in the now instead of dwelling on what I don’t have anymore, or on what I want to have someday. So, I’m starting a project today. I’m going to take one picture a day that represents what that day means to me. By July 3, 2011 I’ll have 365 pictures that show what life meant to me on any given day. I’m hoping it will be more than just a collection of meaningless pictures. I’m hoping it will be a journey…a project that forces me to look at each day with new eyes. And when I look back on it, I hope I see joy and hope and love in those pictures. That’s what I want my next year to be full of.

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Time Marches On…

It’s been a crazy couple of months. Despite my grief and my occasional feeling that I can’t go on, time marches forward. The seasons change – both the weather and the athletic seasons. Baseball has started again, so we’re back at the ballpark several days a week. The first few games were bittersweet. We ran into so many people we knew from last Spring…so many people who cared about us and went through four months of pregnancy with us. Some of them were straightforward and asked how we were all doing after Ian’s death. Others danced awkwardly around the subject, waiting to see if it would come up. In those cases, I always brought it up…reassuring them that it’s okay to ask about it. I’d rather talk about Ian and what happened than pretend he never existed. Now the questions are all answered and everyone is comfortable with me again, and we are all enjoying our time at the games. Garrett is doing well this year, playing first base and catcher. Hailey started softball for the first time, and is enjoying it so much. Between the two of them, we are busy constantly…but I find that I like the chaos. Too much down time is depressing.

Today Ian would have been nine months old. I haven’t cried all day…yeah for me! I’ve thought about him several times…wondered what he would be doing now. Crawling? Babbling? As I sit here, I often glance up at his picture on the shelf and smile. Such a beautiful boy. And I miss him so much.

I’m pretty well recovered from my surgery. The procedure went well but, unfortunately, they could only fix one tube. The other was too scarred from the c-section. But the doctor seemed sure that the healthy tube went back together well and we would be successful getting pregnant again. I’m going for a test next week to make sure the tube is open…if so, we will start trying to get pregnant this month. Keep us in your prayers!

Ian's eggs.

Easter was a little bit emotional. The kids all got together and colored eggs, and talked about what Ian would do. Would the Easter Bunny scare him? Would he like hard-boiled eggs? They all made “Ian’s eggs” and whoever found them in the egg hunt got a special prize. We ended up going to my uncle’s house and the kids hunted for eggs with my cousins’ kids. It was enjoyable, and it helped to be able to spend Easter with another mother who was still grieving…it’s been two years since my cousin passed away, also from a brain tumor. Talking with my aunt, who has such a strong faith and so much courage, always grounds me.

Brandon and I continue to see our counselor. We have our ups and downs, but we are growing…both as individuals and as a couple. We have had some very hard times lately, but we are both determined to make our marriage work. We made a promise to each other and to Ian when he died, and we both intend to keep that promise.

So, that’s it. I don’t have any profound observations to share. I don’t have any interesting insights. I’m just a woman…a wife, a mother, a daughter…that is trying to find a “new normal” for her life. I know I will never be the same person I was before I lost Ian…I’m not even sure I want to be. So, in that regard, things will never return to “normal.” So, I’ve set the goal for myself of finding a “new normal.” An existence, a life, an emotional place that I can feel comfortable with. It used to torment me that I would never be the same…I wanted my old life back. But now I realize that isn’t going to happen – and I’m actually okay with that.

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