To be or not to be (an inspiration)

There are lots of incredibly inspiring women out there, living with grief, living after baby/child loss, who write about it, like I do.....but they write beautiful, inspirational things like "I choose to breathe in healing" or "I will live for both of us" or "I choose to see beauty not darkness"....do they? Do they really? It all sounds very lovely, but I'm not convinced.  I can tell myself that I choose all these things, but will it really actually make me feel it?  I do a similar thing, but for me it's the far less poetic "pep talk" Things along the lines of "just get through today, and we'll worry about tomorrow later" or, "things are going to get better, just keep going" or, "look how far you have come, how can you give up now?" I guess I'm more of a Winston Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going" than a Shakespeare: ""Make the coming hour o'erflow with joy, and pleasure drown the brim." (All's Well That Ends Well)

I do think some people, not all, but some in my life, think that I choose to wallow in grief and sadness.  They want me to "choose" happy.  Well, it would certainly make them feel better...but what about me? Would it really help me to pretend that life is yellow when really it is grey?  There's almost this expectation, when you go through tragedy, to become an inspiration. To deal with it gracefully and see the higher good. Take it on the chin and cope so well that people say "I don't know how you do it" Well, I don't want to be an inspiration. I didn't choose this life and I don't choose to pretend it's all fine when it isn't.  I am not wallowing in my grief, I am dealing with it the best way I can, for me, no-one else.  If I am honest, then people try to help me.  If I pretend I see butterflies and roses instead of moths and thorns...but then cry myself to sleep alone at night, how is that true healing?

You know, it feels like my choice has been taken off me. I didn't choose to be an angel parent. I didn't choose to have fertility issues...I chose to be a mum. What is God's will? What about my will. My free will to choose...what happened to that?  I feel I have lost all control over my life, and that is hard to accept, and scary.  I am now afraid to build up hope, because hopes dashed hurt so badly.  So, if I come across as negative more than I seem positive...bear with me.  It's self preservation.  Like the hedgehog who learns to curl itself in a ball and expose its spines to the world, I will put on my armour of honesty and tell it like it is.