Ronan.
I’m pregnant. And I wish I could tell you that it feels like light. That it feels like hope, or joy, or anything close to what it’s supposed to feel like. But it doesn’t.
It feels like betrayal.
It feels like guilt sitting in the corners of my chest, waiting to pounce the moment I let myself imagine this baby surviving. It feels like I am cheating on you with a heartbeat I don’t trust, growing in a world that already failed us once. It feels like I am walking through fire, barefoot, and everyone around me is calling it a miracle.
I tried to prepare. I talked with Dr. JoRo, for hours and hours—about love, loss, what it might feel like to carry life again after watching yours slip through my hands. We peeled back layers, trying to make sense of something that will never make sense. But grief doesn’t give a fuck about logic. It’s a thief, and it keeps stealing from me—especially now.
I don’t feel excited. I don’t feel giddy. I feel scared. Every single day. Scared that this baby will die. Scared that I’ll finally let myself love it, and then it’ll be taken from me too. So I hold back. I protect myself in silence. I act numb because it’s safer than breaking open again.
People tell me you said you wanted a baby sister. That I wrote it. That I talked about it. I believe them, but I don’t remember. I can’t remember so many things anymore, Ro. My brain is full of holes and fog and screaming. I try so hard to hold onto your voice, your laugh, your smell, but it keeps slipping through my fingers like dust. It hurts. It hurts to forget. It hurts to remember. I’m trapped between both.
Whatever this baby is—girl, boy, spark in the dark—it will be loved. But it will never be you. It will never be instead of you. I don’t want it to fix anything. I don’t want it to heal me. Because I’m not broken in a way that needs fixing. I’m broken in a way that is sacred. A mother who has loved and lost. That’s not something to be patched up. It’s something to be carried with reverence.
Your room will stay your room. I will not turn it into something new. I won’t take down your Yoda. I won’t box up your clothes. I won’t repaint the walls or swap out your bed. That room still smells like you. It still holds your energy, your stories, your secrets. That room is yours, and I won’t erase you to make space for anyone else.
I told your daddy—he’ll have to build something new. Because I won’t dismantle what’s left of you just to pretend this is normal.
It’s not normal. None of this is.
I’m still sick most days. The only thing I can stomach is pie. Pie. Can you believe that? Peach, apple, cherry. It’s all I crave. I used to starve myself for control, remember? I used to pretend I didn’t need food, didn’t need softness. Now pie is the only thing that doesn’t make me gag. Maybe it’s the universe’s weird way of reminding me that sweetness still exists, even in the ugliest places.
Yesterday, I tried to be productive. Tried to show up, do the work, answer the emails. I talked to Sparkly. He read my blog about the cancer world—how I called it barbaric. He told me I might’ve been too harsh.
And I lost it.
I called him. I snapped. I told him, “You didn’t see it all. You saw some, but not everything. And I still protect you. I still protect everyone from the worst of it. Because if I didn’t… if I told the whole truth… I think it would burn the world down.”
I cried. Hard.
I told him how they treated you like a test subject. How I sat there, helpless, while the best doctors in the world tortured my baby in the name of treatment. How I watched your spirit dim under fluorescent lights and hollow-eyed professionals who never saw you—only the disease.
And he listened. And then he told me, gently, “You’re right. You’ve always been right. You don’t have to prove anything to me, love. You have my respect. Always.”
He always knows when to change the subject before I drown.
We talked about New York. I’m leaving soon. Stacy’s coming with me. We’ve got business to do, but it’s all for you. It always is. These are the only trips I can take—the ones that keep your name moving, your legacy alive.
You’re the reason I still get out of bed. You’re the reason I still say yes when all I want to do is disappear.
People ask why we call the baby Poppy. It’s because when I first found out I was pregnant, it was the size of a poppy seed. And that felt like something I could hold onto. Something small. Something fragile. Something beautiful, even if it doesn’t last.
Tonight, I watched your daddy come home from work. I was curled in bed—sick, maybe a little broken—and I watched him place his keys on the dresser. Right in front of your urn. That image? It leveled me.
His keys.
Your ashes.
Side by side.
Like that’s not the most backwards, fucked-up, devastating thing I’ve ever seen.
You should be here.
You should be here.
I miss you so much, Ronan. Every second. Every breath. Every beat of this baby’s heart reminds me of the one I can’t hear anymore.
I love you. I will always love you. And I will keep loving even when it hurts. Even when it terrifies me. Because that’s what you taught me.
I hope you’re safe.
Sweet dreams, baby doll.
All good things are wild and free, right Ro???
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