Readings - Flowers Are Forever - A Site Dedicated to the Memory of Violet Anna and Iris Mary Carey

This page features poems, quotes and books we have read and found some comfort in.

What is "Normal" After Five Years?

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone
important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.
Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Birthdays
Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Valentine's Day, July 4th and Easter.
Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a
funeral than a wedding or birthday party…yet feeling a stab of pain in your
heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket.
Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and
screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything.
Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand
what if's & why didn't I's go through your head constantly.
Normal is reliving the accident continuously through your eyes and mind,
holding your head to make it go away.
Normal is having the TV on the minute I walk into the house to have noise,
because the silence is deafening.
Normal is staring at every girl who looks like she is Violet & Iris's age. And then
thinking of the age they would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then
wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen.
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 telling the story of your children's death as if it were an everyday,
commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how
awful it sounds. And yet realizing it has become a part of my "normal".
Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your
children's memory and their birthdays and survive these days. And trying to find
the balloon or flag that fit's the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.
Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special
Violet & Iris loved. Thinking how they would love it, but how they are not here to enjoy it.
Normal is having some people afraid to mention my Violet & Iris.
Normal is making sure that others remember them.
Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives,
but we continue to grieve our loss forever.
Normal is weeks, months, and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse, not better.
Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have
lost a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the remotest part of the earth away from
you - it doesn't compare. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural.
Normal is taking pills, and trying not to cry all day, because I know my mental health depends on it.
Normal is realizing I do cry everyday.
Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals.
Bodies being referred to as cadavers when you know they were once someone's loved one.
Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone
but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child.
Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child.
Normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England, Australia, Canada,
the Netherlands 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,
talking and crying together over our children and our new lives.
Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God. "God may have done this because…"
I love God, I know that Violet & Iris are in heaven, but hearing people trying to think
up excuses as to why two young girls ages 4 & 5 years were taken from this earth is
not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.
Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did laundry or if there is any food.
Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have two
children or no children, because you will never see this person again and it is
not worth explaining that Violet & Iris are in heaven. And yet when you say you have
no children to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed those children.
Normal is avoiding McDonald's and Burger King playgrounds because of small,
happy children that break your heart when you see them.
Normal is asking God why he took your children's life instead of yours and asking if there even is a God.
Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million years.
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".

Some People come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to new understanding with
the passing whisper of their wisdom.
Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.
They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts,
and we are never, ever the same.

I'll lend you for a little while a child of mine, God said,
   For you to love her while she lives, and mourn for when she's dead.
   It may be six or seven years, or forty-two or three;
   But will you, till I call her back, take good care of her for me?
She'll bring her charms to gladden you, and should her stay be brief,
   You'll have the lovely memories as a solace for your grief.
   I cannot promise she will stay, since all from earth return;
   But there are lessons taught below I want this child to learn.
I've searched the whole world over, for teachers kind and true;
   And from the throngs that crowd life's lane I have chosen you...
   Now will you give her all your love? Nor think the labor pain?
   Nor hate me should the angels call, to take this child back again?
To which the parents did reply...
   Dear Lord, Thy will be done.
   For all the joys thy child will bring, the risk of grief we'll run.
   We'll shelter her with tenderness,
   We'll love her while we may...
   for all the love this child will bring,
   forever grateful we will stay.
   But should the Angels call for her,
   much sooner than we've planned,
   We'll brave the bitter grief that comes,
   and try to understand.

I will see you by the ocean.
I will see you where the waves pound.
I will here you when I listen as the soft wind blows.
I will see you in the moonlight.
I will see you in every star.
I will see you wherever I wander, no matter how far.
And I will keep looking, and I will keep listening.
And I will keep remembering long after days have gone...
That our love, my darlings, will always live on.
When you love someone they're never far away,
because they're always with you.
That's because love has no time or space.
It just continues on forever.
I will see you in the flowers.
I will see you where the green grass grows.
I will hear you when I listen, wherever the soft wind blows.
I will see you in the moonlight.
I will see you in every star.
I will see you wherever I wander, no matter how far.
And I will keep listening, and I will keep looking.
And I will keep remembering, long after the days are gone.
For our love, my darlings, will always live on.

When God calls little children to dwell with Him above,
We mortals sometimes question the wisdom of His love.
For no heartache compares with the death of one small child.
Who does so much to make our world so wonderful and mild.
Perhaps God tires of calling the aged to His fold,
So He picks a little rosebud before it can grow old.
God knows how much we need them, so He takes but a few
To make the land of Heaven more beautiful to view.
Believing this is difficult, still, somehow we must try.
The saddest word mankind knows will always be "goodbye."
So when a little child departs, we who are left behind
Must realize God loves children... Angels are hard to find.

A grieving parent is someone
who will never forget their child no matter how painful memories are.
A grieving parent is someone
who yearns to be with their dead but cannot conceive leaving their living ones.
A grieving parent is someone
who has part of a heart as the rest is buried with their child.
A grieving parent is someone
who begs for relief from the memories which plague them and then feels guilty when they get it.
A grieving parent is someone
who pretends to be happy and enjoying life when they really are dying inside.
A grieving parent is someone
who can cry or laugh at the drop of a hat whenever they remember their beloved child.
A grieving parent is someone
who feels as if they just lost their child yesterday no matter how much time has passed.
A grieving parent is someone
who fears for their remaining family because they cannot bear to have any more losses.
A grieving parent is someone
who sits by their child's gravestone and feels a knife stabbing their heart.
A grieving parent is someone
who wants to help others who have lost loved ones because somehow their loss is theirs all over again.