Grief

 Grief is much like a tsunami.

 

 At times it seems like the pain and sorrow are getting less and less, and you are gaining more and more distance from the water.

 

 However, you sit and get hit by a massive wave because, just like in a tsunami, you think the water is getting more shallow. In reality, it's just building up off in the distance like a loaded spring, just waiting for the right time to break.

 

 You're fine, and then you stand up, and you feel your heart sink. Flooded again. A pain so immensely great it physically hurts. It takes your breath away and knocks you off your feet.

 

 I have climbed so many mountains and crossed through some dark valleys in the past two months.

 

 And just when I think I've got it under control, I'm reminded that my reality is that my baby is gone. Never to be held.

 

 Everyone around me seems to be pregnant, announcing their babies' gender or sharing their birth announcements, others are celebrating their babies at showers, and I'm laying in my bed crying, just waiting for someone to shake me and say, "hey, wake up you're having a nightmare!"

 

 Yet I know this is my reality, and I'm STILL fighting to hold my soul together as it shatters, so when you ask me how I'm doing, and I say, "I'm great," I'm lying, but because so many people (including myself) think I should be over it by now, I just bottle it up, hold it in and wait until I'm alone to fall apart.

 

 And I'm not over it yet because, at the end of the day, my baby is dead, and that isn't something as a mother you ever really get over.

 

 This isn't what motherhood should feel like.

 

 And no, I'm not okay.