What happened to my dreams?

kim.rudness
Jul 5, 2024
7 min read

proceed with caution. Anger, swearing, and questioning "god" ahead

It has been a chaotic start to summer. I'm only working 20 hours but I'm taking Health Promotions and clinical this summer and it feels like a full-time job along side my actual job. Our class focuses on Mother+babies+labor and I love it. Our clinical is spilt with 4 weeks in labor and delivery and 4 weeks in community nursing. My first 4 weeks was in labor and delivery and it just wrapped up this week. I learned so much and I was able to witness 2 births while I was there. It was really amazing and I loved being there. It is a lot of assignments and paperwork and summer class is only 8 weeks too- so I'm studying constantly and trying to stay on top of the material. It's been a lot, but I really love learning about this, it's just a lot of things to do at once.

Things are going ok. Yesterday was the 4th of July and we didn't have much planned. We spent the early afternoon with my parents. They just purchased a boat and we took it out on the fox river to the Bay of Green Bay. It was so lovely to get out on the water and just relax. After our boat ride we met my parents at our house and grilled dinner for them! Sadly, we had to spend the rest of the evening studying, doing assignments, and Adam had to head to bed early. He works at 5am and that alarm goes off at 4am for him.

I was doing ok until last night. I was mindlessly scrolling when I saw a photo of some of my girlfriends back home in Michigan sharing photos of their kiddos doing 4th of July festivities. The photo was of 3 of my girlfriends children all together. They were watching the parade, which is tradition back home, and all standing there in their 4th of July outfits holding their bags of candy. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Greyson will never be in a photo with their children like that.

He will never be a part of their memories of the 4th. He won't be holding a bag of candy after watching the parade, driving us crazy asking to eat every piece. He won't be in annual photos with my best friends kids. There won't be photos from previous years.. watching them grow as the years pass. He won't be a part of it. He is left out because he's gone. He's left out because Tay-Sachs took this from him and us. I lost it. I hate feeling that way because I love their kids and I want to see photos of them and I want to be their adoptive Auntie Kimmy, but my heart broke last night seeing that and realizing my life will never be what I dreamed it to be. I knew from a young age that I always wanted to be a mother.. and yes, yes, I am a Mom and always will be.. but I want to be a mom to a living Greyson. I want to watch him grow, I want to see him become friends with my friends kids. I want to push him on a swing. I want to snuggle him and comfort him when he's sad and scared. I want to be a typical Mom. My life dream was to be a Mom to a living child.. not a bereaved mother. I will never be able to live my life as I dreamed it. Yes things may change and maybe one day I will have more children, but I will always be missing my first born.

I hate it. I hate grief. I hate how much I miss him. He should be here. He should be playing and enjoying the 4th, like I did as a child. He should be running, playing, and doing everything other kids can do. He's been gone 668 days. He's been gone almost 2 years from this earth. 2 years without holding my baby. 2 years without kissing his cheeks. I'm still so angry. Maybe not as frequently as I was previously, but I'm pissed off. I did everything you're supposed to do, I did everything the right way. I did everything and I lost my son. I want to have faith that he's in heaven and there is a bigger purpose to all of this, but I don't know what it could be. I'm so tired of hearing "God has a plan for us" "He's with God" "He's in a better place" - sorry, but that is absolute bullshit. I know I've touched on this before, but fuck that bullshit. Why am I being put in this position. Why is "God" testing me? Why did "god" choose my family to go through this? If there is a "god" why did he/she take my son. Why is he/she putting my family through this grief. People tell me "to change the world, like you want to do". You're telling me there wasn't another way? There wasn't another way to bring me to learn about Tay-Sachs (or other rare diagnosis) and help me choose to become a nurse? You're telling me, my baby boy being sacrificed was the only way "god" could get me on this path? No. That's bullshit. If he/she is this all powerful and loving being- then they could have found a different way to have me get on this path.

I am tired. I hear "you're so strong" all the time. I'm not strong.. I just don't have any other choice. What other choice is there? I am trying to survive. I'm exhausted. My soul is exhausted. I don't have any other choice but to feel what I feel and survive it. Just because I can smile through everything, doesn't make me strong. Some days I might be stronger than others, sure, but I don't have any other option. If I didn't put one foot in front of the other, I would never leave my bed again. I don't have any other choice but to keep going.

I'm trying so hard to be positive and to stay positive. I have good things in my life, but there is a Greyson sized hole in my soul that can never be filled. I miss seeing "signs" from him. I get them sometimes, sure, but they used to feel a lot more often. It feels like as the days go on, the further and further I am from him. It's harder to remember some of the days we had together. I feel empty, if I'm being honest. My heart is empty and I don't really know how to put that in words. It's empty, but it's heavy. It's vacant but it feels like it's going to just fall out of my chest. I feel like I'm going through the motions, like I have to remind myself to inhale, and exhale.. blink your eyes, ok, breathe again. There is this weird version of me living this life and I left the real one back in September 2022.. well probably in March 2021 if I'm being honest. DDay was the day our lives really changed. That's the day our anticipatory grief took over our lives. I know people want to help and they'll tell me "you're doing amazing" or "look at what you've accomplished so far".. and yeah, I'm proud of how hard I've worked in school and honestly just breathing at this point, but why couldn't Greyson be here with me? I don't understand how life can just be this cruel. This isn't the life I dreamt for myself. I not only lost my baby boy, I lost the life I had dreamed of, the life I had planned the day I found out I was pregnant. I lost my motherhood experience and quite frankly, I lost a huge part of myself. I'm still really angry at the situation and it feels like that will never go away.

I just want my son back in my arms.

I'm trying. I really am. I want to be happy, like fully happy, again. There are moments where I am happy, but then there are moments where I just can't. Thankfully my anxiety didn't ruin my clinical experience in labor and delivery. It felt really nice to be around babies again.

Here are some photos that I haven't uploaded yet -

These are from the boat ride on the 4th of July! We went out pretty far. It was a beautiful day even though it was overcast.

This was taken Monday in my Health Promo class. I was looking at my computer background (my sweet handsome baby boy) and noticed the search bar had the steggy there :)

This was a really awesome comment to get from my clinical instructor after one of our weeks in clinical. She really encouraged me last semester and this semester. I don't want to jinx anything, but I think I found my specialty.

This is the puppies right now.. Nalle had enough of Millie today :) Millie does have a tendency to be a bully sometimes and Nalle also likes to go to bed earlier than we do typically. I'm writing this and studying at the same time, so it's going to be a late night for me.

Nalle in my face, first thing in the morning. Millie checking to make sure I'm ok after Nalle threw her toy at me. Then I tried to bring my homework to my sister's backyard but the girls wouldn't stop barking so it didn't last too long!