Ro babe. Ro baby. My little monkey man. I’m here. In Sedona. I drove alone. I looked for you in the backseat. I didn’t see you. So I turned up the stereo even louder. Pearl Jam, Prince, and Madonna, blasted through the car. I drove even faster. I didn’t die. I didn’t drive off of the side of the road like I imagined myself doing so. I wanted to. But then a flash of your Daddy’s face appeared. And your brothers. And our lovies. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Could do it. But WON’T do it. WON’T is the key word here. A handful of people that would miss me too much. And a mad little boy you would be at me. At least I try to tell myself you would be mad. But maybe not. Maybe you would be so happy to see me, that you wouldn’t care. I can imagine that because in our real life together, you did used to hog me. You would get so upset when I would give my attention to your brothers. “My mama!” You would scream as you would latch yourself onto some part of my body. “My MAMA!!!” You would squeak out if anybody else tried to get near me. You always wanted me, all to yourself. I secretly loved every second of it, although I would try to be fair. I felt so privledged to be your mama. Your one and only. The one you wanted 24 hours a day. I happily played that role. I miss it so much. I know you miss me taking care of you.
On my drive up here, I got stuck in the usual Friday evening muddy traffic. Nobody is moving but everybody is in such a hurry. They all seemed to have such important places to go. I wondered where. Probably home to their families. Heathy families or sick families I wondered. Are they happy or unhappy? Does anybody else stuck in this traffic jam, have a child who has died? Is anybody else, driving up to Sedona to attend a grief retreat because their child, is dead? Probably not. Lucky me. I feel like I am one in a million. And not in a good way. Guess what else happened, Ro? Ring Ring!!!!!!!! Went my phone. A number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t think and I just picked it up. This coming from the girl, who won’t even answer the phone when my best friends call. But don’t worry. If you are an unknown number, I’ll pick it up to chat. After today I have decided not to make that mistake again. I am thinking about disconnecting my phone, entirely. O.K. a little drastic. But that is what I felt like, after I hung up my phone today.
“Hello,” I said as a wave washed over me and my little voice said, uh oh. Here we go again.
“Yes, is this Maya Thompson?” the voice on the other end said
“Yes, it is.” I replied
“Yes, Mrs. Thompson, this is Nick from such and such collections agency. I have a debt here due to Phoenix Children’s Hospital that I am trying to collect. Can you verify your home address?”
Fuck. Really fuckwad. I thought to myself. Fine. Just deal with this.
Jesus. Fine. “It is xxx-xxx-xxx-HELL. O.K. What is this in regards to? I thought I handled this. I have insurence. Is this something new??”
“Well, Mrs. Thompson. The amount is 193.42. How would you like to take care of this today?”
“I would not like to take care of it today. I would like you to send me something so I can see what exactly this is for. Can you do that for me? Just send me something in the mail.” I replied.
“Mrs. Thompson. It would be easier if you just handled this today. Can you verify Ronan’s Birthdate??”
“Fine. It’s 5.12.2007.”
“Oh, wow! He’s 4 years old now, that is great!” The Mother Fucker said on the other end of the phoneline.
“What did you just say….??” I said.
“I said, he just had a birthday and he’s 4, actually he is older than 4 now…”
“Actually, he is not, you MOTHERFUCKER. He is dead.”
“Uh, oh. I..uh…I had no idea…. well. O.K. then…. Do you want to take care of this debt? I can take a credit card or a check over the phone.”
“How the fuck would you, know, Nick… that my son is dead?! You are a fucking debt collector! So you wouldn’t fucking know! Hey, Nick…..guess what?? I am a little overwhelmed with things, because my son just died…. but thank you for your concern. You can take that 193 dollars, and shove it up your ass!!”
Click. I hung up. I almost pulled over to throw up. I screamed out loud instead. I didn’t just scream. I screamed out, “MOTHER FUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I could have handled this lovely debt today. The lovely “debt,” that PCH thinks it is necessary to send me to collections for. This lovely bill, that somehow slipped through the cracks so now I get to deal with an asshole worker who is just trying to do his asshole job. An asshole job, that this asshole, probably really needs, to put food on the table. Or maybe not. Or maybe it is to support his drug habit. Because there are bad people out there, who do shit like that, and who have kids and take their kids forgranted by doing shithole things, like drugs. They do shithole things like drugs and abuse their kids and then the worst thing that happens to them is they maybe go to jail for a few days….. for the asshole choices they have decided to make in their lives. The asshole choices they make, while having heathy, beautiful kids, who they could give a fuck about.
And then there is you. And me. And I didn’t do asshole things to you like abuse you or drugs. I only loved you with every bone in my body. I gave you every ounce of happiness and love that I had, because that is what you gave to me. And we were happy. But for some reason, we had to have it all taken away because I loved you too much??? Because I was a good mom? Because I didn’t do asshole things?? Only really, really, really, amazing, pure things. I have yet to read that book, “Why bad things happen to good people.” I think I threw it in the garbage when the author started talking about God.
I’ll tell you why bad things happen to good people. It is very simple, Ro. It’s not fucking rocket science. There is no reason. There is no fucking reason, why. I have fucking learned to accept at least this part, of losing you. There will never be a reason, a justification, an answer. It just is. Fucking plain and simple. It’s fucking fucked up. It’s fucking bullshit. It’s fucking not fair. There is no answer. A book does not need to be written, on this subject.
Guess what else, Ronan. On my drive up to Sedona, I decided a few major things. Are you ready for my mind blowing, life changing revelations?? Here it goes.
I’ve decided I can live on these things, alone, for the rest of my life because I think this is pretty much all my diet has consisted of for the past few weeks.
Water
Mango/Peach Coconut Water
Coca Cola….. or even better…. Fountain Cokes
Extra Hot, Non Fat, Vanilla Lattes
Sugar Daddies
Extreme Airheads Sweetly Sour
String Cheese
Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups
Rice Pudding
Hummus
Salt and Vinagar Pototo Chips
I hate food. It all tastes blah and makes me throw up or totally nauseas. But I could not live without the things above. Thank you processed junk food mania. In some respect, you are keeping me alive. We’ll see how long it lasts.
Babydoll. I’m tired. I miss you. I love you. I hope you are safe.
xoxo
ROCKSTAR RONAN 
Leave a reply to Natalie Cancel reply