Ronan. Ouch. As I sit here and write, my fingers are aching with pain. The kind of pain that shoots all the way down to the tips of my fingers. This only happens to me when I am crying really hard. Like I’ve been doing all day long. I cannot stop. Guess what else I did? I got on a plane to fly back to Phoenix. Alone. As I was walking through the San Diego airport, it hit me that this is my first flight without you since you were diagnosed. We flew everywhere with you to try to get you better. Today, I stepped on that plane all alone without you to take care of anymore. There were no looks of pity from the other passengers because of your little bald head. If anything, people were full of smiles, someone complemented my tan, someone else told me I had pretty eyes and they liked my shoes. All the while in my head I was thinking, “What the fuck is going on?? Don’t you people know my son just died?” I sat on the airplane in the aisle with nobody beside me. Across from me sat a boy. A very cute boy who reminded me so much of you. He had tan skin, light eyes, and gorgeous hair. I thought to myself, I’ll bet Ronan would look similar to this boy if he would have grown up to be his age. The boy was holding a book about running. He also had some rubber bracelets on his wrist that he was wearing. I was content just to sit by myself with my thoughts of you, but then I noticed this boy kept looking down at my foot. He looked over at me and asked what my tattoo said. I smiled and told him that it said “this too shall pass.” He asked what it was for. I smiled again and told him that I had gotten it for my almost 4-year-old son, while he was sick with cancer. The boy didn’t know what to say after that except that he was sorry. I told him it was o.k. I took off my F U Cancer bracelet and gave it to him. He read it and smiled and put it on. I asked him about his running book. He then asked if I wanted to come over and sit with him. I said sure, why not. I sat with this boy and we talked about his running for a bit, but he really wanted to know all about you. For all the crying I did today, I sat with this boy, whose name is Bryson, and we talked about you for the entire flight. I told him about this blog that I write for you and how I had over a million hits on it. He was shocked to say the least and seemed confused as to how many people could know about you and your story. I told him it was because you are such an amazing soul and have so many things to teach to people in life. Turns out, Bryson is 17 and lives in Utah where he is the oldest of 6 kids. He has a little brother who is 4. Bless his mama.

As we were landing, Bryson told me that he wished that I were flying to Utah with him because he loved talking to me. I told him he was sweet and handed him a card with your blog info on it and told him to keep up his running. Shortly after that , I got a message from Bryson saying he looked up your blog and told me how touched he was by our love. He told me that even though he is only 17, he knows I’ll see you again and he could really feel our love and your spirit today. He thanked me for telling him about you and said I have changed his life and have inspired him. I sent him a message back and told him to think of you every time he runs and that you will push him to do great things in his life. I’m not sure why I met this Bryson boy today, but I feel like there was a reason. I feel like you were behind this. It was too random of an instant connection for there not to be a reason. Even if that reason for meeting him was only because of the few minutes I sat and looked at Bryson, before I knew anything about him, and I smiled to myself and felt happy because he reminded me of you in the way he looked. If this is the only reason, it is a good enough reason for me because for those few minutes, I felt like I was staring at an older version of you. So, to you my Bryson friend…. thank you for being such a sweet soul. I told you I felt like you are an old soul and I know you will do great things with your life because of my Ronan baby. He will watch over you:) And keep up your running and your mama too. I love that she is a runner as well.

After I landed, I grabbed a Taxi at the airport and headed to our house. I know I could have had a hundred different people pick me up, but I didn’t want the hovering. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to walk into our house, alone; and do whatever I needed to do. I needed to come home and do this by myself. You’ve been pulling me there for a couple of weeks now. I walked in, threw down my stuff and started screaming for you. I called out your name 20 times and then I ran into my bedroom and there you sat, on our dresser, in your urn. I grabbed you, kissed you, picked you up and held you. I took you into your room and sat in there with you for a long time and screamed for you, talked to you, and cried for you to come back. I opened up your urn, which I have been so afraid to do. I was so scared to see you in there. I took the cotton out and peeked inside to find all of your ashes in a clear bag. I took out the bag and held you and stared at you. Your ashes look like sand. I stayed with you in your room for a long time and wept. I read the sticker on the bag that said that these were the remains of Ronan Sean Thompson. Cremated on May 12, 2011. I almost passed out. You were born on May 12, 2007. I don’t even know what to think about this except it makes me physically ill. And it is insanely cruel, sick, and twisted.

I didn’t really tell anyone I was coming home, but Stacy knew. She showed up at our house and found me in your room, holding you, sitting on the floor crying. She sat and hugged me and rubbed my back. She picked up the phone to talk to your Daddy because I couldn’t answer it. I felt o.k. with her being there. It’s hard for me to break down in front of people and to not push them away. I’m not scared to do this in front of Stacy. I know this is not only because she is an amazing friend, but it has to do with the fact that she lost her sister and she can unfortunately, relate to my pain. This makes it easier for me to let her help me and as much as I try to fight her on it, I usually give in. I gave in tonight and let her stay with me and drive me to where I am staying as I cannot face being at our house right now. She insisted on staying the night, but I pulled a total Ronan move and kicked her out of my hotel room. She didn’t want to leave, but respected that I needed her to. I came home for a couple of reasons and one of them being that I need to grieve about you as I have not had a chance to breakdown fully yet. I cannot do this in front of your brothers and I have been holding this in since you died. I have to let go of these tears that I need to flow for hours upon hours. I’ve cried about you here and there, but not really crying as I have such a responsiblity to Liam and Quinn. I cannot let them see me this way. This is my time that I need with you. Just you and me, Ro.

I’m not here long and I will return back to San Diego on Thursday. I needed to see you. I need to see my therapist. I need to take care of some silly things too. I mostly just need to be, to scream, to cry, to throw things, to talk to you, to yell out loud to you that I need you and can’t live without you. I need to sit in your room like I did tonight and talk to you. I need to do this all alone because I am your mom and you are my son. And there are things I need to tell you that nobody else needs to hear. I need to feel you, to try to sleep without my medication so I can actually remember the things I dream. I need to see you, Ro. I cannot take not seeing you in my day-to-day life anymore, but to not remember dreaming about you is killing me. I need some alone time too. Some quiet to be able to sit and think about you, your life, my life and what the fuck I’m going to do now. How the fuck I’m going to go on because as my dear friend, Charisma, said today, I do not have a choice. She chewed my ass and I mean that in the nicest way possible. I needed to hear the things she said today, as hard as they were to hear because all I felt like screaming back to her was that none of what she was saying, mattered; because you are gone. She is the rational one though; I am not. I know she is right. But now, I need this time with you so I am going to let you guide me little one. I need a day to just cry about you for as long as I need to without having to worry about your brothers seeing me this way. If I don’t do this for you, for myself, I’m going to crack. Mental institution, here I come. I don’t want this to happen so here I sit, alone with my tears and with you. This is exactly what I need now and it is long overdue.

So, my sweet. It’s late, I’m tired without my Ambien so let’s give this organic sleep thing a try. I will wait for you in my dreams. I love you, Ro. To the moon and back forever. I hope you are safe and happy. I miss you so much.

xoxo