New Normal… Again

It’s been over 2 months since I’ve written anything.  It’s beyond hard because I just don’t know what to say anymore.

My dad passed away October 9, 2014 after a short but hard fought battle with small cell lung cancer.  I didn’t write here about his diagnosis other than mentioning it once simply because he read my blog and I didn’t want him to come here and read about how depressed I was knowing I was losing him.  So I just quit writing altogether to avoid that.  He was diagnosed in May and passed away in October- it’s unbelievable and I feel like my heart has been stomped… again.  Since 2012 I have lost so many people I loved- 6 to be exact- and it feels like it’s never going to end.  I begged God to take my Daddy and end his suffering because sometimes you truly do have to love someone enough to let them go.  Knowing that I will see him again one day is the only thing that keeps me going at this point- that and my children.  They are heartbroken as well.  Pop was their world.

Photo by Kayla Cobb at KC Photography

Brynlee underwent cleft palate repair surgery October 14, 2014.  Yes, it was a crazy few weeks.  She is so strong and did amazingly well.  We spent the night at Children’s of Alabama and she was released the next morning.  Her recovery has been astounding.  She weighs 19lbs 10oz and is almost 30 inches long.  She completely skipped 9 month clothing and went from 6 months to 12 months.  She wears mostly 18 month pants and leggings because she’s so tall and has thunder thighs.  🙂  She goes back for her cleft repair follow-up and another modified barium swallow study November 6th.  She just started crawling!  She can also sit up and is still just a delight to be around.

We started our homeschool year and it was going fantastic, but with Dad’s sickness and Brynlee’s surgery, we have taken October off.  We will begin again in November and probably not take as long as I had planned off in December to make up for lost time.  One of the reasons I wanted to homeschool this year was because I know things were going to be tough on the kids when Dad passed away so I feel like we definitely made the right decision keeping Bryson home.  Bryson is reading, spelling, sounding out words, counting to 100, and doing some basic math.  I’m so proud of him!

These pictures are from the fair- 2 weeks to the day before my Daddy died.  He didn’t feel like going, but he had not missed a fair since Bryson was born and he knew it would be his last so he went anyways.  I’m so thankful for those last few memories we made together- picnics at the playground, the fair, playing h-o-r-s-e in the driveway, and simply spending time together.

I don’t want to quit writing so hopefully I can return to my favorite form of therapy now that we are learning to live with our “new normal” again.  What is normal anyway?  For us, normal is ever changing.  One year ago, normal did not include cancer, trachs, feeding tubes, surgeries, pumping, syringes, etc.  We just keep going- that’s all I know.

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