Since the beginning everyone has said to me “You are so strong”, or “I couldn’t do what you are doing, Your strength amazes me.” I have been trying to figure out what strength really is? It surely isn’t the absence of tears in my case. For the first 6 months I was a perpetual faucet, I couldn’t get through an hour much less an entire day without weeping. Now I consider a day a win if I complete it without having a meltdown (a case of the sniffly tears don’t count). But a completed day without tears that cause me to hyperventilate and bawl uncontrollably. That I consider a win.

In the beginning when people asked me how I was? It always cued a river of tears, now the same question cues the answer “ok, I have good days and bad days.” Which is the absolute truth, days where I just want to stay in bed and cry all day, and days where I want to get up and tackle the world.

That doesn’t mean I don’t remember the days in the PICU and immediately following. Where I was broken, and couldn’t imagine going on. Couldn’t figure out how I was supposed to function in a world that no longer had Connor in it.

Slowly little by little tiny pieces of my heart and soul are stitching themselves back together. I will never be completely whole again. My heart will always be missing parts and it will always be broken.

I have learned to embrace this “new normal”, that doesn’t mean I will ever like it, or understand why it had to be us, why Connor. But I know there is nothing I can do to change it. I cling to the memories like a lifeboat, scan thru my pictures remembering what was happening then and recalling the happiness of the time.

Trying not to let the sorrow overwhelm me. If I were to tell you that the pictures don’t make me tear up, I would be lying, I will miss him until the day I die. Someday it might not hurt so much, but I’m not there yet…..