New "normal" ??

I have heard this a bunch since my mom passed in October.  "Are you adjusting to your new normal?"  At first it seemed like a pleasant thing to say.  People want to reach out (most anyway) and say something.  They gave me a card or attended her service and now months later they want to 'check in.'  I get it and yet, as I have pondered that phrase, I am feeling conflicted.  What is 'normal?'  Was it normal to have a mother who didn't know who I was?  Was it 'normal' to change and bathe ones own mother?  Was it 'normal' for my husband and daughters to have to clean her up after soiling herself?  Was it 'normal' that we couldn't go anywhere as a family without hiring a Grandma-sitter?  Suddenly, all of these 'normal' occurrences are now a thing of the past and yet somehow, I don't feel NORMAL!  I have the time to sew, shop, paint, watch a movie, sleep in, attend every school event and come home whenever I feel like it.  These things should be 'normal' for someone in my stage of life (kids almost grown and gone from the nest) but if this truly IS 'normal' then I HATE IT!  The parts of my heart that were so exhausted from the past 11 years of caring for my mom and longing for the freedom that I now taste, cries out for another day of waking her up, getting her dressed and cleaned up, feeding her breakfast and even watching her sleep in the chair by the fire.  As dull and quiet as those days were, and yes even monotonous.....I would trade them again and again.  This 'normal' isn't normal at all to me.  I wore the badge of 'caretaker' for 11 years and although there were more times than I care to admit where I mentally threw that badge on the ground and pitched a 'fit' in anger and resentment for the toll it was taking on all of us, I would do it AGAIN and AGAIN.  

Still not sure what NORMAL is.  Maybe someday.