Ronan. San Diego summer is over. Our first summer without you. We are heading back to Phoenix. Time to get back to reality. Time to try to start a new life, a different life. Time to try to figure out what this is going to look like. As much as I don’t want to, I have to. This summer was a complete and total blur. I feel like I’ve done a lot of crying. A lot of thinking. A lot of nothing but just allowing myself to feel the sadness that I feel from losing you. It was a place that I needed to be in, a place that I had to allow myself to drown in for a couple of months. I am trying my best to get my mind set in a different mode. I am trying to do my best to pick up these pieces that are shattered all over the floor. As of now, I have to do this for your brothers if no one else. I hope there will come a time in my life when I will start living for myself again, but I’m still not there. I’m still jaded, guarded, numb, mad, sad, angry and scared. But I have also found that with all of this I am able to feel glimmers of love, passion, laugher, peacefulness, and happiness. If anything, being able to feel myself feeling these things again, is saving me. Saving me from drifting off into a place that I do not want to go. Ever. My fighting spirit, and your fighting spirit will keep me going. I’m not giving up on you and I am determined to make a difference in this world. I am determined to make the most of this life without you. You wouldn’t have it any other way.
I met about a dozen beautiful people this summer who have been so touched by you and who are willing to help me with whatever I need to help make a difference. They all inspire me and I truly believe they will be behind me on this journey. I cannot wait to see the beauty that comes out of all of this love. I’ve taken the time to really soak up some things that have been said to me, but by one person particular. One person who knows truly knows the pain of losing a child. This one person who took the time to let me in, no questions asked. Who took the time to let me cuss, cry, to question and second guess everything; but somehow managed to shine a positive outcome on every fucked up thing that came out of my mouth. Normally, I would have thought this all to be bullshit, but this person doesn’t work this way. This person has shown me that I really do have two choices. To crawl up and die or to continue to fight and relearn how to live my life in a way that makes me happy. Full of passion, strength, happiness, light and love. I’m not going to fight the days that I do want to crawl up and die, because I know that I will have them. I am going to continue to be true to myself and I know how quickly everything can change, but I know that i do want to go on. I do want a life. I truly do have so many people to go on for. So many people who I want to make proud, so many people who I want to help, so many people who I want to make realize what really is important in life.
I don’t know what the future holds and I so used to think I had it all figured out. I remember the way your daddy and I would talk about our perfect life and the perfect picture we had mapped out. It’s been really hard to watch everything we thought was true, be completely ripped to shreds. Out of all the cliché sayings in life, the one that now holds the most meaning to me is to live everyday to the fullest because as I have now learned, life can be over in the blink of an eye. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is. As much as I hate to say this, life is suffering. As much as I am angry at what has happened to us, the fact of the matter is, it has happened and no amount of anger, sadness, and bitterness is going to bring you back. Our outcome, our life of losing you, will never change. I have no control of that but I do have a little control over the way I choose to live my life now. I don’t want to be “the mom,” who lost you and who let it destroy everything. I don’t want to be looked at as “the mom,” who can’t survive this. I want to be looked at as the mirror image of you, someone who possessed such strength and love. Who took on the world with such fire and passion and who never gave up. I’m not done with this world as I have too much to fight for.
I once had Mr. Sparkly Eyes tell me that one of the things about me, that left him the most curious, is the way I seem to live the life of half child and half adult. I thought about this for a minute, and I didn’t argue or take offense to it. I simply looked at him and told him, I had always been that way. I feel like you were me in every part of this way. And now I am you. We are one. I like the innocence and wisdom the we both possess and I truly do feel like we have lived this life before, together, in the way that I feel like you were mine for a hundred years even though your time on this earth was so short. I don’t want my innocence to be lost in all of this but I now know that it is going to take on a different meaning in my life. I feel like I was put here on this earth to be more than what I am. I feel like you will help me to achieve this as there is now a fire that burns inside of me even as I sleep. I know nothing is going to get done in this world by hiding under the covers. I’m not completely ready to face the world, but I feel a little more ready than I felt a couple of weeks ago.
Ronan. I wrote all of that in the car while we were driving home. I blasted the music that would make me the happiest (Britney, of course) on my headphones. I tried to keep the tears to a minimum as I clutched your blanket so hard that my fingers turned blue as we drove past PCH. I swear I saw the two of us, in the old hospital building, on the 6th Floor staring out the windows like we used to do to watch all of the busy people going by. I started to bawl. I would give anything to be back in that hospital with you. I felt like pounding on my window and jumping out of the car to run up to the 6th floor just to see if you were really there. I didn’t. I stuffed my tears into your blanket instead and sniffed it to see how it smelled. Fresh and clean, just how you loved it after I would wash and dry it. You would sniff it in and take you fingers and rub them back and forth on your blanket while holding it up to your face. I cried for all of the other babies in there too. I no longer get to drive past and only think about how pretty the colors and lights are. What a fool I was. What a selfish, unaware person I was. I’ll never be that way again.
We made it home. I’m more of a wreck than I thought I would be. Crying everywhere. In my room. Holding your ashes. In your room, on your bed. Looking at your little easel that you had taken pen on and colored all over the chalkboard part of it, instead of using chalk. That will be your last drawing on that easel. I’m going to save it forever. My head is spinning at looking at all of your stuffed animals you slept with in your bed. I just want to lay there with them forever. I had to take my Ambien. I have to pass out because all of this is too much right now. I thought I was going to be able to do this, but was I fooling myself? I feel back I’m right back to where I started and the pain may feel even worse. I need to go to sleep, Ro. Before I start writing crazy shit on here. Before I start to go off on the whole God and Devil thing. Before I start to go off on the person who told me I won’t see you if I don’t believe in God. Fuck that shit. I’ll save this rant of mine for later. I had a pretty positive day, until now. Now, it’s time to go into my dreamless sleep. Maybe in your bed, with your things surrounding me.
We are home. But it will never be home sweet home, again. I love you Ronan. My heart hurts. My head hurts. My fingers hurt. My eyes hurt. Everything hurts knowing that you are not here. I love you, little man. I love you to the moon and back and I hope you are safe. G’nite baby.
xoxo
ROCKSTAR RONAN 
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