Ronan. Tomorrow is your daddy’s birthday. Fuck. May is so busy, full of so many things to celebrate, except for not really anymore. I mean, really, did you have to leave us in May? Before your birthday, your daddy’s, and Liam and Quinn’s is coming up too. I’m going to try to be extra happy for your daddy tomorrow, but all this may consist of is getting my ass out of bed to make sure I tell him how much I love him. And how freaking sorry I am that we have nothing to celebrate. Because we don’t, and it would be weird to pretend like we do. We will make it the best day that we can though. Liam and Quinn have their last day of school tomorrow. I am so relieved about that. I am ready for a summer break and some quiet time to escape here for a bit. I need some time with your brothers with some fresh air and nothing but the love that we are holding on to. Our love just has to get us through this. We all need to reconnect so school could not have ended at a more perfect time. We are all ready for a little down time. Time to slowly repair all the little things we can by being together and finding a new normal I guess. As much as I hate saying that, a new normal is what we have to try to get used to. I don’t want a fucking new normal though. I want our fucking old normal back. Back when I was such a busy little housewife that I thought it was a chore to take my wild 3 year old to the grocery store with me. But we would go and have the best time. We would then come home, take our sweet naps, wake up, clean up the house, start dinner, clean up with that, baths, showers, homework….. Everything was so important and so exhausting. Ummmmm… no. It wasn’t. It was the most beautiful life with 3 healthy boys. Who cares that you took a pen and stabbed holes in our ottoman. Who cares that you took toothpaste and squirted it all over the bathroom floor and covered the mirrors with it. Who cares that you took a Sharpie and drew all over the walls. I was that mom; the mom that cared. Although I did find most of your little shenanigans funny….. you got into trouble for all three of those things. So stupid. So nothing. So something a 3-year-old should be doing and not getting yelled at for. Although, I’m not a big yeller. You know I’m more of the fun mom who just kind of embraced every creative thing you used to do. It was all part of your growing up, learning right from wrong, and encouraging you in any way possible. I’m so sorry for the last 8 months of your life and the real growing up you had to do. You learned such hard lessons and none of it was fair or right. You had to grow up way too fast and I will never get over that.
Ronan. I’m still here. Where are you? I’ve looked for you everywhere and cannot find you. I’ve looked for you in the reflection of my window. I’ve looked for you at the restaurant that we ate at today for your daddy’s birthday. I’ve looked for you on the side of the road. You are nowhere to be found. I want to be nowhere too. I want to be nowhere with you. But I can’t. Despite my wishing for the world to stop; it hasn’t and therefore, neither can I. So, I’ve been doing all the things I’m “supposed,” to be doing. I’ve been getting out of bed. I’ve been running errands. I’ve been taking care of your brothers. But I’ve been hiding too. Hiding from the people I love the most. Sometimes, I crawl back into bed in the middle of the day and hide there for a couple of hours. I never sleep. I pretty much lay there and just cry. And than I think about you and how mad you would be if you knew what it was, that I was doing. That forces me to get up and moving again. I never liked to make you mad. You had such a temper. I miss that. The days are still really blurry and I still have no concept of time. I do know that the pain from you being gone is now getting worse. The numbness is wearing off and the pain is almost intolerable. My stomach sinks a lot to the floor. I’m still dealing with the whole breathing thing too. I catch myself a hundred times a day not taking enough breaths. I have to tell myself that I have to breathe. I feel like I should be wearing an oxygen mask around 24/7. I wonder if this would help. I doubt it. I don’t think anything would help at this point.
Today is your daddy’s birthday. I’m so sad that you are not here for it. All day I have thought about how we would have celebrated him together, as a family. The way he deserves to be celebrated everyday. You know what I did for him on his special day? I let him drive me to my therapist appointment. He always asks if he can drive me and I always so rudely tell him no; that I don’t need to be driven. Today, on his freaking birthday; I asked him if he wanted to drive with me. Just so we could be together. It is your daddy’s day, yet he ended up doing something special for me. Par for the course. I promise to make this up to him someday. But honestly, this was the best I could do today. This is as good as it gets this year. I’m sorry, Woo. I do love you. My birthday wish for your Daddy tonight, Ro, is for you to visit him in his dreams. Please. He needs you.
I’ve had a hard time feeling you around me these past few days. I think it is because I am physically so consumed by my pain that my body is not letting me feel anything else. I saw Mr. Sparkly Eyes yesterday. He told me how you came to visit him in his dream. He told me how he saw your big blue eyes and how you told him you were o.k. I am so thankful for that. I love that you are finding a way to get to me, even when I am having the hardest time finding you. I love how you will do whatever it takes to let me know you are o.k. because I really, really, need to know that. I have no sense of peace, Ro and why should I? I don’t understand how any mother who has lost a child can ever really have peace. I think people say a lot of shit to make themselves feel better about losing a child. And I know I am new to this club, but I can already tell you everything I am hearing is bullshit and things like, you will come to peace with this, are only said by people to get through the day. Once you lose a child, it’s as if you have to retrain your mind and the way it works just to go on. I’m still in the, fuck everything phase and nothing is ever going to get any easier. I suppose the pain may lesson after time goes on, but only because your brain is filled with new memories and somehow the memories of your child seem fade. It must be because you learn to reset your brain and you learn a new way of living so that it doesn’t feel like dying. But what do I know? I don’t think any one person deals with this the exact same way. This is just my observation and as I have learned…. I know nothing except for what I am feeling. And sometimes I do not even know that. This whole thing is a fucking learning experience that I never wanted to be a part of. One of my favorite quotes in the world has always been from the movie, “Shawshank Redemption.” I was reminded of this the other day when I was laying in bed, hiding, and your daddy came in and said, “Get busy living, or get busying dying.” I just gave him my normal, piss off look. But I know he is right; like always. I told you that daddy of yours was a smart man.
Everything we do now is so. freaking. boring. I said this out loud to your brothers tonight. I actually said to them, “How boring is life without Ronan?” They both agreed and Liam talked about how much he misses you. We then took turns saying if you were with us right now, what you would be doing. There was so much laugher when you were around. That is one thing I will never forget. You filled up any empty space with your giggles and craziness. I never knew how dull life was until you showed us what we were missing. Oh, Ro. I really don’t know what we are going to do without you. Everything is so empty.
I’m having a hard time. I know you know this. I’m haunted by a lot of things. I told my therapist, Sarah, today how right now, I cannot stop thinking about your eyes how they looked the last couple of days before you died. They turned from a crystal blue, to a deep blue like the ocean. I keep wondering if it was because your little soul was getting ready to leave this earth. I think about this all of the time and I cannot get the image of you and the way the color of your eyes changed out of my head. Someday, I hope to replace this sad memory of you, with all of the happy ones I experienced. Someday, my sweet boy. I will pray for this.
I love you to the moon and back. Just me and you, forever and ever. G’nite my baby doll. I’ll love you forever.
xoxo
ROCKSTAR RONAN 
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