We went to a grief group. We meet other families that have suffered a loss, a class for the parents and a separate one for the kids. It was reported to us that the kids are doing very well with verbalizing their feelings. This is good, to prevent the verbalizing of screams we all hear as parents like “he touched me!” or “she is my seat!”… No, the goal is not just verbalizing emotions but being able to label them… and I am thankful that my kids are able to express how they feel. Nathaniel announced at the beginning of his group that “he was here because his baby sister died”. Ailsa said “we wanted to bring her home; it didn’t work out that way, but we will see her in Heaven- I will go there after I die.”

In our group, we were asked what was normal? I have never been to such a group and wondered if we were to stand and “say my name is...” I wondered if there would be tormented crying and I wouldn’t be able to identify with the others in the room. Instead I felt normal among them, I felt that we all understood each other, yet are wise enough to know from our experience that we truly don’t understand exactly how they feel. Grief is so individual, each of us approaches it differently… I, with humor, and prolific journal writing. Nathan is glad for work to go and get in the zone. We all looked normal, no tear soaked faces, no defeated body language…I felt like them, pleased that I was not abnormal in my grief. We all want life to go on, and also resent that it has. The daily world we have to deal in, seems so foreign like we are visiting a strange country with odd customs, all our prior experience has left us ill prepared to understand how others seems so unaffected. There was laughter, there was subtle tears, there was camaraderie. I look forward to next week. The social worker said “Normal is a button on your washing machine.” So, when I meet people who tell me they understand my loss, their cat died or I must be OK because Katelynn was so young—I can smile and say “hey, I am normal everyday”… my laundry is so done!