Ronan,
It’s the middle of the night, and I can hear the rain. It’s pouring down outside. I just went to check on your brothers, and in doing so, I have to walk past your empty room. I peeked inside. Nobody was there. That reality never gets easier.
I think I lost my shit yesterday.
It started a few days ago when I came home in the middle of the day and walked into our quiet house. I had been working at the kitchen table and had left a bunch of packages sitting in your usual spot. As I turned the corner into the kitchen, I swear I saw someone sitting there.
I thought it was you.
For a split second, I imagined it was real. I imagined running to you, scooping you up, kissing your face, crying tears of relief and saying over and over that I always knew you were coming back.
That image has been haunting me.
Yesterday I tried to be productive. I tried to participate in the world. But when I came home, something in me cracked. I paced the house. I crawled into bed. I cried for hours. Your daddy came home to find me there, undone.
Sarah texted asking if I was going to support group at Dr. Jo’s. I told her no — that sitting in a room listening to parents talk about their dead children was not where I needed to be right now. Especially being pregnant. Support group is hard anyway. Being pregnant there makes it harder.
But then I texted Jo. She said she was leading and could see me beforehand. So I put on real clothes — pants included — and left the house with tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes. The walls felt like they were closing in. I couldn’t breathe inside this house.
I got to Jo’s a sobbing mess. She sat with me and gently laid out what my body already knew — I’m carrying a baby, your two-year mark is approaching, May is coming, and I’ve been trying to function inside a world full of trivial problems that don’t even register to me anymore.
Of course I’m spiraling.
Group started. I stayed because I wanted to sit next to Noah’s moms. The room was full.
Stillbirth.
Cancer.
Stillbirth.
Stillbirth.
Eight-month-old — unknown cause.
Three-year-old — stopped breathing.
Murdered child.
It never gets easier. The death of your child never gets easier. This is not something you “recover” from.
And I think about this every time I sit in that room.
The world understands addiction. There are treatment centers, entire infrastructures, language, funding, compassion. And I truly understand addiction is a devastating, powerful disease.
But none of us chose for our children to get sick and die.
Yet there is almost no structured support for bereaved parents. No national safety net. No widely recognized path for survival. No place to check into when the weight of this becomes too much to carry alone.
Society doesn’t know what to do with us. We don’t fit neatly into programs. There is no Betty Ford for parents whose children have died. There is no system built to hold us while we try to learn how to exist again.
So where do we go?
In my dream of all dreams, once I build this care center, I want to help Jo build something bigger. A residential place for bereaved parents. A real one. With trained counselors. With compassionate care. A place where parents can process the trauma before being thrown back into the bright, oblivious world where everyone else still has a living child.
A place where we don’t have to pretend to be strong for a while.
Because being this strong all the time is torture.
We did nothing wrong. We loved our children with everything we had. And yet we are serving a life sentence for a crime we didn’t commit.
There is no escape from this. No parole. No good behavior release.
We just wake up and keep going.
I went to bed telling myself, “You survived today. The pain didn’t kill you.”
It never does. And somehow, that’s the cruel part.
I have an interview in a few minutes. Life keeps moving. It doesn’t wait for us to catch up.
I miss you.
I love you.
I hope you are safe.
And thank you for the rain.
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