What do you do when your "normal" is no longer an option?

So my class got canceled this morning which is why I am home.  The past few days have been very hard on me though I don't think anyone has really noticed much.  I was sitting in my car at a stop light and just started crying for no real reason.  As I look over at the other people sitting there going about their days I found myself wondering what is going on in their life.  I wondered who just lost someone, who just got arrested, who is going to pass away today.  I also wonder who is going through the exact same thing as I am.

Most of my friends and family have only heard bad stories about my ex husband, and the honest truth is there wasn't much good about him.  I hated him for a very long time, I'm not going to lie.  It was always hard for me to see similarities in my children and him.  But there are some and some of those make my skin crawl because I can remember my marriage with him so amazingly well. I guess that is what happens when you go through a domestic violence situation.  But my children are my children, they are not him, or even me they are unique, they are themselves and I cannot see life without them.  Even though I hated him, I never stopped caring about him because whatever he did affected my children.  I never wanted them hurt so I tolerated him for their sake.  I just could not be married to him so we split for good in 2007 when my youngest was only 3 months old.

On August 31, 2012 he put himself through a windshield.   He was drunk, out partying with some friends, jumped in his car, missed a stop sign, and t-boned a SUV going about 60mph.  Both him and his passenger were thrown from the car.  His passenger survived and is doing well, my ex husband however is a vegetable.  He is still alive but there is nothing left of his mind.  He is not brain dead or even considered in a coma because his eyes are open, but there is no higher function of his mind.  Think of it this way everything your body does involuntarily like the beating of your heart, breathing, waking up after falling sleep, and normal bodily functions, he can do all of those things.  But everything that makes us, well us is not there.  He cannot speak, hear, smell, walk or communicate in anyway shape or form,.  They say that death is more welcomed than becoming a vegetable.

There is nothing to pull, he breaths and his heart is just fine, they need no help to continue, the only thing is that because he cannot do is feed himself, he has a feeding tube. If that was to be pulled out he would starve to death.  That seems a bit cruel, to me anyway.  I tell you all of that to tell you this, I miss him yes even if he was this horrible person to me, I miss him.  There isn't a moment in any day where my mind doesn't drift to him, not because I love him or even really cared about him but because he mattered so much to my kids.  He was there dad, how can I be happy having my children all of the time when I got them this way.  My kids are without their biological dad, they are without a part of themselves.

I remember when this first happened my current husband and my brother were sitting in the garage, I was crying, they both looked at me and said "why, he was this horrible person who got what he deserved" but do we ever actually get what deserved.  If that was the way things were I would have died a horrible, tragic death by now.  Even though a part of me is happy about it because, after all the kids are home with me where they belong, I feel cheated out of a victory.  I mean victory by this, everything was a competition with  him.  Our current spouses, our homes, cars or just living life, everything he did was to try and put one up on the me, that is how it was with him. That is how he played the game, I won at a lot of  those things which I was proud of myself in doing so.  For me it wasn't about being better than he it was because everything I ended up doing benefited my life and my children's life. It became this way, he was there to screw up, I held him as the example of what not to do.  Now that is gone I can't help but feel a little lost, what do I do now?  I am the only one the kids are looking at, so does that mean I try to become perfect to set their only example of a parent as a great one? Or do I just keep doing what I always did? perhaps I should show them that I am flawed, that I am not perfect, that I make mistakes too, but I don't know if that is the right thing to do.

I was OK with being the "good" parent and him being the "bad" one.  That's how this worked, even the kids seemed to OK with the way things were set up but now the "bad" one is gone, and it makes the "good" feel cheap. I used to say "you can't have good without the bad", but now that the bad is gone then were does that leave the good. I think that is what I mean by I miss him.  I could always count on him to screw things up, and I would fix the mess, that was my normal for so long so what do I do now? My normal is gone and for my kids life will never be the same, it will always be the could of, would of life.  We cannot say he would have stayed the "bad" parent their entire life, because none of us have anyway of knowing that.  I am just at a crossroads in life I guess, do I just keep going the way I was going when he was still around, knowing that my children's life has now changed drastically? Or am I supposed to change drastically along with them because the way I was before August 31, 2012 just doesn't make since anymore. 

What is life, or should we be asking what is it to live

I am reminded of a line of a song, I may take the low road in but I want to take the high road out.  And that is a very true statement, nobody wants to actually experience or wallow in pain.  Depression I don't see as a mental handicap, I see it as a choice.  You do not have to stay down, though many do.  But why do some stay sad and why do some pick themselves up and carry on?  The answer to that question would depend on who you ask it too.  You ask to a person who is in the middle of heartache and they will tell you they can't see past their pain, you ask someone who has pulled through it and some will tell you they stayed positive, others will tell you they got high or drunk, others will say they just accept whatever they can get regardless of the outcome, others still will tell you it was God who pulled them through.

But why is it different?  You ask anyone of those people (perhaps other than the perpetually high and drunk person, because lets face it that is just a temporary fix) and they will tell you that their way is the only way to go.  Their way is the best, so everyone should listen to them because hey it worked for them so it will work for all, right?  What if that isn't it at all, what if there is something more to pulling out of a depressed state.

Everyone at some point in their life has felt the pain of heartache, and if you say you haven't I would have to call you a liar.  Heartache is different for everyone and thing that causes someone to feel pain differs greatly.  Some it's the lost of a pet, some it's the lost of a family member, some it's finding out you are adopted, some it's when your parents divorce. To the person experiencing those things their heartache maybe great when others would look at them and say REALLY??? that's nothing let me tell you  . . . . fill in the blank.  But that isn't the good response to a person's pain, that just makes you look heartless, cold and have no empathy for another human being. (by the way the usual go to response is "O my gosh I'm so sorry")

I once read a book called "Why do bad things happen to good people" in fact I read the entire thing to my brother as he lay fighting for his life in a hospital bed.  Even though a choice lead him there it didn't matter, here was my brother, my flesh, my blood, and he was dying before my eyes.  I heard lots and lots of talk about miracles  and God was going to pull him out of this because he was a Christian same as me.  Yet here I was reading a book about a christian pastor who lost his 4 year old son.  And I couldn't help but feel this sting of pain for the person I was reading about.  Here he was a pastor praying out to God to save his son, he was losing a child and there was nothing any of the doctors could do for him so he prayed, had his church, family and friends praying for him just as everyone was praying for my brother and yet he still lost his child and my brother pulled through.  Why would God choose to save my brother not this pastor's son (or even the pastor I know right now in Reche Canyon Rehab center who is a vegetable after a stroke 7 years ago) , how could I tell this person who believes the same as me, God performs miracles look he saved my brother, when this dad is morning the loss of his child?(or the wife of the pastor in Reche Canyon who has been praying for 7 years for a miracle without the slightest sign of hope)

I've heard every possible answer to the silent questions I wasn't asking . Those answers to why is this happening to me, we don't deserve this, do not work at all.  Nobody in the middle of pain wants to hear that God has a purpose, that God wanted this or God will do this.  Because when the pain turns south and that person dies how can one stop from hating God because He must have wanted this or that or so we are told.  How can I just accept that someone is gone because God wanted it.  How can horrible heartache make sense if God is in control? Couldn't He have stopped it because if He loved his children He wouldn't want them to suffer by no fault of their own, right?  If He is total control then why do his children suffer?  If you believe in a all loving, all knowing, powerful God then wouldn't his children never feel pain. And if you do believe that then most of the time that question is followed by this one, if he does love us, and if our pain has a purpose then why do "good" people suffer?

Sometimes it is not asking the question but finding the answer that gets us in trouble.  I think of God as this, He is all knowing, all powerful, and knows the answer to every possible question but He does not know what question we are going to ask.  He knows what will happen in every situation but does not know what situation we will be in because He does not know what choice we will make. We have free will as human beings and we are the only thing on this planet that has this unique feature   So how does that fit into someone who child has been murdered?  it was the murders choice to take the life. How does that fit into someone who has been adopted? it was the birth parents choice to give up their child. How does that fit into a person who has been in a serious car accident because of alcohol and is now a vegetable? it was because of that person's choice to drink and drive.  How does that fit into someone getting better after being on death's door?  it was because that person choose to take amazing care of themselves before such and such happened.

So how does that work with miracles? Because without believing in the miracles one can not be a christian.  I see miracles as such, not a grand saving of a person (though that does sometimes happen) but small miracles that happen everyday, all day to every walk of life. I see the drug addict who has been one for a number of years finally give it up as miracle.  I see the person who has experience the murder of a child, thrive and want to help others as a miracle.  I see the person who has cancer that can not be cured, smiling and living life until their last moment as the miracle.  I see the person who has been through something that would be unbearable to others, live their life, smiling, and happy as a miracle. I see the atheist who on there death bed accept Christ as their savior as a miracle.

Being a miracle (because I have been through life altering emotional pain and I am sitting here ten years later still surviving and thriving) and believing in them for something that is not the popular belief (especially in the christian circles) is something that has labeled me as negative, hopeless, or being a unbeliever. I am here to tell you I am none of these things. And what would I say to the person who has no hope for the good outcome, who feels there is no way out of their pain? I would tell them this, Hang in there, life doesn't get better, you become better at handling it. Your pain is not worthless though it may feel like it right now.  There is hope and there is a purpose even if it is to learn what not to do.  Now is not the time for reflection, that is for later, right now is time to put one foot in front of the other and to never stop moving forward. 

Miracles are something that happens when you change your outlook on life, when you start asking the right question and seeking the right answers.  Become a truth-seeker not a lie-follower and that my friends is the miracle.