Living with grief

Grief steals your joy.

It breaks your heart.

It robs you of enjoyment and peace.

It shades your world. 

It makes all things that should be good, suddenly turn bad.

It's heaviness can leave you unable to stand.

Grief is sneaky and unpredictable; just when you think you've got it figured out, you fall right back to zero.

It makes other mothers seem like the enemy and other babies like my worst nightmare.

It makes simple tasks like running to the store seem overwhelming.

It forces a wall around my heart and life.

It often leads me to say and do things I would have never normally done.

Grief is beautiful because it tells of deep love.

Grief is ugly because it's uncontrollable and relentless. 

It whispers in your ear all the "what might have been" and "what should have been"  things you are missing every moment of every day.

It pulls you down and down and down until you don't even know how to get up again.

Grief lies to people it's not affecting. It says I'm controllable. I'm a choice. I'm linear, with a beginning middle and end. I shouldn't take long at all. I can be gotten over quickly if you just work hard enough. I'm not really a big deal. 

To those it invades, it tells the truth. I'm unavoidable. I'm relentless. I'm messy. I'm never going away. I'm always with you.

When death follows love, grief is unavoidable. Either now or later, that's your only choice.

Grief is my new normal.