Finding normal.

Don is home. Susan cooked a delicious meal. Tali finally had her birthday dinner. The kids rode their little bikes through the house. We sat around the kitchen table and talked. Jim worked in the shop. The most normal things in the world... but none of it felt normal. Dynamics have change. Strong men are vulnerable. Wives are nurses. Emotion abounds. Baskets filled with gauze and tape instead of magazines and toys. Making a plate for Grandpa instead of the grandkids. Assistive devices on silverware. Lotion on grafts.

I thought we'd find normal at Grandma and Grandpa's today. Lives that have been turned upside down somehow steadied by the comforts of home. Instead I found the reality that we must seek out a new normal.

I don't intend to be dramatic, We are eternally blessed that Don was not injured further. We are amazed at the progress he has made already and have every hope that he will blaze the trail ahead of him and come out the victor in the end. But to see this man, who I've always known to be stoic, unemotional, strong... coming to the point of tears at the mere sight of his grandchildren... I know life has changed, and I'm left praying that God can make His way into that change.