If you’ve ever been through grief or any catastrophic event you’ve probably heard the words, ‘new normal’. They are the buzz words of dealing with grief.

What was normal? Were we normal to begin with(said tongue in cheek). Our normal was very normal for us. During the week we all got up and we ate breakfast together and then we got ready for work and school. Patrick always rode into school with me except for the last year. I was going in earlier and so my husband would take Patrick to school…and Patrick got a tardy slip just about every single day that year 😉 He loved being at the school but there was no reason for him to be there for 11+ hours a day(teacher life). Our evenings were typical in that we arrived home between 6 and 7 and one or both of us would cook dinner, we’d go out, or one of us would have grabbed take out on the way home. We’d eat dinner together, catch up on each other’s day, clean the kitchen and then it was family time, which meant we were entertained by Patrick until the dreaded phrase was uttered, “Patrick time for bath and bed”. Weekends were spent together as a family–grocery shopping, minecraft, playing outside, buying legos and putting them together…no real schedule…just enjoying that it was the weekend.

It’s been over a year now and nothing feels normal in our house.

I think I’ve tried to make things the way they used to be…trying to make the pieces fit into places they don’t fit into anymore. Patrick isn’t here. He’s not coming back. We’re never going to have another day with him so all those routines and ideas of how our lives should be need to be reshaped and rethought. I have to find a new normal.

I like routine. Some change is okay but I don’t really like unplanned changes, especially sudden unplanned changes, they kind of unnerve me. So you can imagine this past year that the sudden loss of Patrick was heartbreaking and devastating for me. So much changed this past year and I still feel lost most days.

I made a decision the other day to completely resign from teaching. My hope and plan is that now I will fully concentrate on healing. I will create and learn what my new normal is(That made me think of I will/We will statement–teacher talk 😉 ). I won’t be waiting and counting down the days to go back to work. As much as I will miss teaching, every time I have gone back to work I seem to have taken 5 steps backwards in the grieving process. I don’t know if that’s just because that’s how grief is or if being at school is that much of a trigger for me. At this point in time, I believe that being at school is that huge trigger for me. I hate that. I know before I was close to being at peace with so much of what has happened. Then one day I fell apart and I felt like I was back to day 1. Don’t misread that. I’ll never truly be at peace at losing Patrick. But I do want to be at a better place than where I am now. I’m going to find my new normal and put the new pieces together.

I love his name. Between the 3 of us we made a list of names that we all liked. We tried out several names but when my oldest son put Patrick and Shane together it was like magic. That was going to be the baby’s name!

Then when Patrick died, hardly anyone wanted to say his name anymore. The most common thing I heard was, ‘I don’t want to say his name because it might bother you or make you cry.’ Hearing and saying his name NEVER bothers me. Do I cry when I hear it? Sometimes, but that’s ok and it’s not because you said his name. It’s because I loved that little boy more than anything in this world.

Two of the best moments when someone said Patrick’s name were when I was still introduced as Patrick’s mom and the other time was when a friend asked if we could still talk about Patrick and could she still say his name. YES! Say his name. He lived and will always live in my heart. He deserves to still be called by his name–Patrick Shane.