A New Normal

To say that the past couple of months have been rough would be an understatement. One month ago today my beautiful mother passed away. She went in to the hospital for something minor, ended up in a coma 5 days later and stayed in that coma for over two weeks until her body shut down and she left this world.

Sitting in a hospital day in and day out, sleeping on hospital floors and chairs, putting on a happy face for visitors, putting on a strong face for family members, seeing your loved one laying helpless in a hospital bed day after day, holding that loved ones hand while they leave this life, planning a funeral, attending a funeral, smiling through the pain, and dealing with the aftermath of a life lost too soon can take a huge toll on you.

This has been my world.

The whole time my mom was in the hospital I just knew we were going to get a miracle and she was going to recover. When the doctors would come in and tell us the odds of her pulling through and would list off all the things that were going wrong with her I would listen intently but their words never devastated me like you would think they would. Something inside me kept saying, “This isn’t going to happen, she is going to make it, she isn’t ready to die.”

Every time we would walk into her room we would look at her monitors and hope to see a positive change in the numbers. We would check those monitors hundreds of times a day. We had gotten so used to looking to those monitors to tell us how she was doing and letting those flashing numbers determine our emotions for that day. Sometime towards the end of her last week in the hospital I stopped looking at those numbers. I didn’t even realize that I was not looking at them anymore until someone would come into the room to visit and ask me how she was doing and I really didn’t have any idea what to say. Normally I would be able to tell someone her blood pressure trend for the day, her heart rate trend, how her breathing was, how high they had her ventilator, and everything in between.

Some people may say I was in denial and just didn’t want to see the numbers anymore because I didn’t want to believe them but I call it faith. Something inside me changed. I realized that those flashing numbers meant nothing to me. It didn’t matter what they said, all that mattered is what He said. I couldn’t let those numbers determine my mood and my outlook and my emotions for that day or hour or minute because in the end the ultimate decision on the fate of my mom didn’t lie with me or the doctors; it was up to God. And while it may seem scary to realize that no matter what we do here on earth we may not get the outcome we want, it was actually comforting.

I knew that my mom was resting in the arms of Jesus while she was lying in that hospital bed. I knew that He was there with us as we prayed for a miracle. And I knew that He knew what was best. That is what got me through the day she passed away and every day since.

I have had to wake up every day for the past month to the reality that I have a new normal. Some days are tough and some are surprisingly easy. There are days when out the blue, the reality of my life will sneak up on me when I least expect it and literally take my breath away. But, at the end of the day, no matter how great a tragedy this has been or how heartbroken I am over this, I have to thank God for all the thousands of ways he has blessed my life. I know I am lucky. I got to spend 27 years having a mother who loved me more than life itself. A mom who made me feel special, and beautiful and important every day of my life. A mom who thought I was the most amazing girl she had ever met. A mom who sacrificed things she wanted so I could have what I wanted. A mom who loved me when I didn’t deserve it and worked hard to mold me into the person I am today. And even though I don’t have my mother on earth anymore, I now have an angel in Heaven.

Yup, I am blessed.