Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetary for Christmas, birthday,Valentine's day, and Easter.

Normal is also not hardly being able to bare the thought of Jesus dying on the cross because of what it did to his mother.

Normal is that extra choclate Easter bunny sitting on the counter because you always get your children a choclate bunny, and this year you still bought one for the one who is not here.

Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child.

Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral and being at the cemetery were my son is buried, than a wedding or a birthday party.

Yet, feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers, see that casket, and all the crying people.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming cause you just don't like to sit through church anymore.

And yet feeling like you have more faith and belief in God than you ever have had before.

Normal is going to bed feeling like your kids who are alive got cheated out of happy cheerful parents and instead they are stuck with sober, cautious people.

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your families' life.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand 'what if's' and 'why didn't I's' go through your head constantly.

Normal is having the TV on the minute I wake up and the last thing on before I go to sleep at nightthe need for noise because the silence is deafening.

Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind because of the hole in my heart.

Normal is seeing Lisa, Dee, and Ray at the cemetery visiting their brothers grave, or my grandchildren visiting their dad's grave, and thinking, how could this be normal?

They shouldn't have to be going through this.

Normal is telling the story of Bobby's death as if it were an everyday common place activity and then gasping in horror at how awful it sounds.

And yet realizing it has become part of our normal.

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and their birthday and survive those days. And trying to find the balloon or flag that fits the occasion.

Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of that ugly plant in the front flower bed and thinking how Bobby liked it and how much I didn't.

Normal is listening for the phone to ring asking if I can go take him to a doctors appointment.

Normal is disliking jokes about death, funerals. Bodies being referred to as cadavers when you know they were once someone's loved one.

Normal is being impatient with everything, but someone stricken with grief over the loss of their child.

Normal is feeling a common bond with friends in England, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, and all over the USA, but yet never having met any of them face to face.

Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother and meeting for coffee and talkingand crying together over our children and our new lives. And worrying together over our living children.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned house or did laundry or if there is any food in the house.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have 3 or 4 children because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that one of them is in heaven.

And yet when you say only 3 to avoid that problem you feel horrible as if you have betrayed that child.

And last of all normal is hiding all the things that have become normal for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal".

My Bobby has been gone since May 2, 2001.

These things are what is 'normal' for me now.

My dearest mother,.... Normal huh? Normal cannot really be defined one way to any one person. Like I would think as growing up my parents are perfect and normal, and my friends could be beside me and say as kids do, 'your parents are weird'. And it is normal to feel, thinking is feeling. The loss of my brother and my best friend was a great loss to a great many people. And as for a happy birthday, I would say yes, yes it is, because he is not here to feel the pain that he tried to hide for his family and friends. Next to my father, my brother was the greatest man alive. And it is kinda funny if I think about it. Every time I do something to wow somebody, or a certain way I draw or know things and people ask, 'how do you do that?', I say, 'oh my brother taught me when I was little'. Nothing to be is before he died, because he did not, his body just left. I look at my life and think to myself, I am happy in my life. Then I think about Bobby and I think, 'he made it', his dreams and wishes came true. He has no pain, no hurt, always smilling the way I remember, on the right hand side of God where he belongs. I stilll look up to my big bother and always will. The only one thing I regret is that I will not see him again in this life. To us it is an eternity, to him it is tomorrow.

He sits next to you one the couch, you can feel him but not see, you can listen but not hear. He asks you why are you crying, why are you sad, 'don't let it be for me for I am not sad. I am happier than I have ever been, and I want you happy for me'.

Mom, Bobby was far from a selfish person, but this one time he wants you to do something for him, and that is be happy, and get on with your life being happy with him. He will be seen by us all again there is no doubt. Mother, I ask you with all my heart not to take this the wrong way. I to am sad still by his loss, but i am happy cause I brag about him more than ever, and know in my heart he is now happy and pain free.

I do not mean to sound meen momma, I am not. I just want you to know that he says please do not be sad for him. I myself have fantastic memories of me and him, and that is how it should be. Nothing less will do. I have been told by many how strong of a woman you are, and I have always been proud of you and never embarrassed. You and pop did a very fatastic job on raising us kids with what you had. Money didn't mean squat. We were the richest family in the world.

Normal is your youngest trying to make you feel life is still there and everything is ok, and telling you, no more worries. To close this note mom, I love you and pop with all I have to offer. Without you, I would not be me.

God bless you mother, I love you.

Ray