Trying to Find Normal

For the most part the rest of 2002 was a blur.We had put our foster license on hold so we wouldn't receive any calls for a while. I knew if they called I couldn't turn them down. For the first time in my life I wanted no chaos, I wanted to mourn and feel sorry for myself and believe me I did. Trying to get through the holidays was going to be  unbearable.The kids seemed to snap back pretty fast but I was on the pity train and had no intention of getting off any time soon. A friend of mine said I should talk to a psychic she once had do a reading  for her, oh what the heck I was miserable maybe she could make me laugh. So I called her, I didn't expect much, maybe a generic reading with your gonna be rich, your going to take a long vacation stuff like that. I was absolutely overwhelmed with emotion when the first thing she asked me was who was catholic, my Mom was. Then she said how sorry she was that Mom has recently passed along with another woman I was close to. She told me she saw a 17month old with bad eyes and he would need emergency surgery, I have lots of kids, would get more a couple of girls, sibling, we would get rewarded for doing what we do. She went on for a half an hour and said something only my Mom and I knew, a private thing. Nothing generic about this reading. The part about getting more kids I didn't believe, because we had decided we were done again. I did feel better in a way and didn't really think of some of the stuff she said until 2 weeks later. When my 17 month old with bad eyes had to have emergency surgery for a hernia that was strangling his intestines. Well maybe there was something to this.
Christmas that year was going to be awful. We always had Christmas Eve dinner at our house so Mom could give everyone their gifts then go from house to house on Christmas Day to see what all the kids got from Santa. I had saved a lot of Mom's clothes. During the time she was sick we had all bought her pajamas, something that was comfortable for her to wear. So I decided I would make my brothers and sister quilts out of her clothes. That was a big undertaking because I had never made one before. Every quilt was personalized with a piece from a pair of p.j.'s they had bought mom. They turned out OK, a little lopsided but OK.
We managed to get through Christmas without anyone having that big of a break down. The New Year had to be better because I couldn't take that train anymore. I needed to get it together if not for the kids then for myself.