Grief Gremlin...

First off I know I always say I am going to start to try to blog again then never seldom do but again I say I am going to try to start again...

So there is this mother in our community that everyone is rallying around in support and care.  She was a former nurse for the same hospital system I use to work for and I had her a few times in both pregnancies with the girls.  She then took a job at a local school as a school nurse where her husband was a coach for the same school system.  For some reason I have always thought of her and liked her even though the conversations we have had with one another were few.  When I was pregnant with Kinley and on the cardiac unit she had came to see me and do heart tones even though they really didn't have too. I was just barely 13 weeks but it was a nice friendly face on a horrible floor and to hear the lovely pitter patter heartbeat of my rainbow baby when they could get them.  We had known each other it seemed thru many friends and I always seemed to be updated on her life because she lived close to me as well.  She lost her husband last year tragically and my heart broke for her and her two young sons.  Well this year she had a whole new grief process to enter because she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer which also led to a malignant brain tumor.  This is all recent and I don't even have all the facts I am not even sure if the whole family does.  It was terrible news and I felt like I got hit in the stomach when I heard it thru a friend before it was even out in the public.  I can't even imagine what she is going thru as she is trying to learn how to fight this beast.  I saw her the other night late in the night on face book browsing thru posts and liking comments and such.  It put to mind a phrase I have always said and never wrote about in the past.  I thought to myself the "grief gremlin" has got her and more then likely tormenting her.  Now I am not comparing my grief to her's as everyone's is totally different.  I remember staying or trying to stay busy all day and wear myself out as much as possible.  Because I dreaded the night time, that's when your at risk for the grief gremlin....I would tease myself don't feed it after midnight because it gets gross and scary and plays dirty tricks on you.  It's a grief gremlin....In the stillness of the night when everyone is sleeping and lights are low that's when it can get you and tends too.  You are there alone and your thinking and you think and think and get deeper into thought and my friend's before you know it the grief gremlin is there and you have already fed it your tears and quiet thoughts and its off until you are so exhausted you fall asleep.  I have had many of these nights.  It always for me was way harder at night.  The lonely dark thoughts in the stillness of the night.  You try your best to keep your head busy and get on face book, watch a movie, read a book etc.  But the night was always so scary you almost just wanted to get it over with.   Now thru time it did get better.  I never say its because you heal with time I really hate that phrase.  Because to me you do NOT heal.  You get stronger each day, you learn to live with the pain and you learn a new normal of life.  But if you ask me today is your pain less intense I would say NO, the pain is the same it always will be because she is still gone but I am stronger I grow stronger everyday each moment and become tolerant and function with the pain.  I even smile, laugh and enjoy life everyday.  In no way am I moving on or forgetting her but I am still alive and I am living, I am still missing her daily.  I still have nights with the grief gremlin but not as many.  I think because I have mastered a lot of this path of grief.  Every day and every stage of life is a lesson you learn from it and grow stronger.  Just keep getting stronger don't give up.  Embrace your grief and learn from it. Its not a gift, its not a treasure but it is a life experience to learn from and grow and re balance yourself.