Ronan. I am feeling better than I was a few days ago. Today, I’m actually having a day where I don’t feel like dying. I have slept pretty well the past couple of nights so I am thinking that might be helping me out a little. Yesterday, I mostly just rested. As much as I hate the days where I have to take it easy… I know I don’t have a choice with this Poppy baby growing in my belly. My little hospital stint was enough to make me take it easy for a couple of days. It’s not just myself I have to worry about and take care of. I have this little life inside of me as well that I have to keep safe. So for her, I will slow down and listen to my body when I need to.
Guess what?! I can finally talk about one of the many things that I have been working on. I have kept this pretty hush hush mainly because I didn’t want to jinx myself, but now that things are getting started, I am excited to talk about my news. A few months ago, I got a little email that caught my eye. It was from someone named Alex and he wanted to know if I had been approached by anyone about writing a book. He is an author himself, and said he had read my blog and was so very moved by our story. He asked me to reach out to him if this was an idea I was willing to explore. I have been talking about this idea with a few people for a good 8 months. Mainly our Fairy RoMo. We had a long conversation about the whole book thing way back when we hijacked that mystery train to nowhere last winter when I was in NYC. It has been something that has been in the back of my mind for a very long time… but you know me and how I am about reaching out to ask things from people. I fucking hate it. I didn’t want to have to pitch our sell or story to anyone. I felt like the story of you and our love is too precious for me to go around selling. So I didn’t. The funny thing is, I had been working on a proposal to send our Fairy RoMo about 3 days before I was contacted by Alex. I sat and tried to write about us, and why this story deserves to be heard. I got about 2 paragraphs done. It wasn’t coming naturally to me so I just stopped because it wasn’t working. Then, the magical email from Alex appeared. The timing of his email was something that I felt was a little gift from you. There was no other way to explain it. I sent it to our Fairy RoMo. We googled him. He turned out to be really legit in the literary world. I traded emails back and fourth with Alex. We had a phone conversation. I told him I wanted to come out to New York to meet him, just to make sure I liked him if we were going to be working together. I grabbed Stacy to come with me on the trip because I knew I would need an outsiders opinion. We set up a dinner with Alex so we could meet him and get a feel for him. Dinner consisted of me, your Fairy RoMo, Stacy and Alex. We talked about this book and what it could look like. I knew within minutes of meeting Alex, that I really liked him. Stacy and Fairy RoMo felt the same way. We left the dinner excited about what was to come. The next month or so Alex and I worked on putting together a proposal for this book. After a few go’s, it finally got to the point where we felt it was good for others to have a look at. It is really hard to get a literary agent, but because Alex is already established in this world, he put me in contact with the people he knows. They talked to Alex and listened to our story and agreed to take me on as a client.
After going back and forth with them over the contract, finally, I signed it yesterday and I am the newest client of Dupree Miller & Associates. My agent’s name is Nena and from what I can tell, she is just the little spitfire we need on our side. She is very passionate about her job and our story and I know she is going to do a kick ass job at pitching our book. So yesterday, I had a moment of letting myself be proud. I am so hard on myself normally that I don’t allow the proud moments to come very often. Yesterday, I did. This is something I am so excited for and so very proud of. I know this book is going to be so very beautiful and it will only help in raising even more awareness. Now, if we can just get the millions and millions of dollars to create this Neuroblastoma center. I keep telling myself to be patient. But it is so very hard when all these kids are not getting the very best care that they deserve. It is so very hard when I am just having to sit back and watch them die, over and over again. Neuroblastoma is the deadliest of all the childhood cancers. I am not going to sit back and twiddle my thumbs and do nothing about that. I know this can change, if it just got the attention and funds that it so lacks.
What did your Sparkly say to me the other day? I think it went a little something like this.
“I think when you started Ronan’s Foundation, you thought it was something you were only going to do for a short amount of time. You do realize now, that this is the only thing you are going to do for the rest of your life, right? That this is what you were put here to do and you are going to do this until the day you die, right?”
I just looked at him and paused for a minute. “You might be right. I think I maybe had a moment very early on that I thought I would only do this for a short amount of time. I now realize that this is the only thing I am passionate about in life. I wouldn’t still be here pouring all of my blood, sweat and tears into this if I just thought it was going to be a moment in time. This is my entire life now, for the rest of my life. I’m not stopping until I’m dead. Or until cancer is dead, whichever comes first.”
So, back to the book. My hopes are to have it come out in September 2013, just in time for childhood cancer awareness month. But all that depends on a lot of things. I am just so very excited to have this opportunity, even though it is a story I wish I didn’t have to tell. I would give anything to just have you here and not to have a fucking book written about you because you died. But I know this book is going to help a lot of people and it is going to do a lot of good in the world. I promise to tell your story the way it deserves to be told. I promise to make you proud. Thank you, Ro baby, for believing in me and making me continue to write. You fuel my fire for everything I do, say and feel. Thank you for giving me the strength and the courage to be honest about everything I am going through and to not be ashamed of any of it no matter what others may say. Without this blog, none of the amazing things that have come my way, would be happening. I am proud of myself for not being afraid to tell it like it is. That all comes from you because I know the way you lived your life; so very wild and free. You are my inspiration for everything. I love you.
Today, I took Quinn to breakfast. He opened up the little box that I keep in my purse with some of your ashes in it. He asked why we weren’t there when they “burned you.”I answered his question as best I could while vowing to fix all of this. No sibling in the world should have to sit with their mom, before breakfast, touching their baby brothers ashes. Fuck you cancer. You fucked with the wrong mama.
I miss you. I love you. I hope you are safe. I love you to the moon and back.
xoxo
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