Ronan. I haven’t cried much while being here at Nana and Papa’s. This distresses me. It makes me scared that this pain is becoming less and less, and I don’t want it to. This pain keeps me connected to you. This pain motivates me. This pain has become my friend, and I don’t want my friend to go away. It makes me think that somehow I am starting to forget pieces of you, and that scares the shit out of me. I don’t want to forget any part of you. I don’t want you to ever become a distant memory of what my life was like a long time ago when you were here.
I miss everything about you. I miss kissing your sweet little lips. I miss bathing your little body. I miss dressing you up like the little old British man that you loved to be. I miss tucking you in and having you wake me up in the mornings. I miss hearing you tell me, “You’re so cute!” or “You’re my best friend, Mama. I love you so much.” I miss our whispers about life. I can’t believe you just closed your eyes to go to sleep and never woke up again.
I’m still here, doing all these weird, normal things in life without you. Teaching your brothers all the things I would have taught you. Giving your Poppy sister the million kisses that you would have given her. Watching certain people in our lives who are literally just throwing it away and pissing all over it.
All while I sit back and just stare with my mouth gaping open. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, “What is wrong with you, you ungrateful people of the world?! Don’t you remember that little boy? That beautiful little boy who would give anything to be here to live a life?! Don’t you remember how you watched me watch him die? How you watched death swoop in and steal him away as everyone around fought their hardest to keep him here? How can you be living this way? This selfish way of hurting yourself and the others who love you and have done nothing but try to support you and love you? You are here, you are alive, and Ronan can’t be, but this is how you honor him? By taking for granted the breath that you breathe and the life that you are so LUCKY to live? How hurtful that is to watch. How I feel like my guts are being ripped out from the inside as I silently scream to myself. How dare you take such a precious thing for granted. Don’t you remember that little boy whom you so claimed to love? Well, he is dead and you are alive, and this is how you give thanks for being reminded of how precious life really is.”
I will never understand this. I get that everyone has their demons. I get that everyone has their “stuff,” but I’m about fed up with the excuses being made as to why a life is just here to be wasted.
Ronan, you should be here. I know you would have appreciated every single second and not wasted a minute on a poor-fucking-me pity party. You fucking had cancer, and that never even caused you to have a poor-me pity-party day. You were always too proud to feel sorry for yourself. You were more of a man than half of the grown adult men I’ve known in my life at the age of 3. That speaks volumes.
I just bawled my eyes out writing everything above, which is what I’ve been needing to do. I always do the most crying when I am writing, which is why it’s not good for me to take breaks from this blog for so long. The book writing is different, and I don’t seem to cry as often when I am writing it. I’m also just past your diagnosis, and that didn’t really make me cry — it only made me vomit uncontrollably for most of the night. Only on this blog do the snotty, ugly-faced, can’t-see-out-of-my-eyes tears pour down my cheeks. I’m sure the further I get with this book, the more the tears will come.
I’m feeling a little better now, except I’m all of a sudden so tired I can hardly hold my eyes open, but I will continue on.
Back to this life that is here now that I live without you. I’ll tell you the stories of the days filled with your brothers and Poppy. How Liam now runs to my car door before I get into the driver’s seat to open it for me. Just out of the blue, he started doing this, and now he does it every time I get in my car. I know your daddy taught him this or explained the rules to him on “how to be a gentleman.” Or maybe Liam just picked it up from always watching your daddy do it for me. It used to annoy the shit out of me. I was up on my high horse screaming, “I’m a feminist! I’m independent! I DON’T need my car door opened!” I’ve come off that high horse and just let myself appreciate how lucky I am to have a daddy like yours who doesn’t let the little things get lost.
Quinn has been doing a great job of helping to fill your shoes and take care of me. He always seems to be right by my side, making sure I’m okay. “How are you feeling, Mom? Are you okay today, Mom? Is there anything else I can help you with, Mom?” He may be asking these things while pounding Liam over the head (there has been a lot of fighting lately, it seems), but he is still asking.
And then there is your Poppy sister. Every day she reminds me of you. Her eyes are getting bluer and bluer by the day. I’m holding my breath that they will stay blue. I know in the big scheme of things it doesn’t matter, but my gawd, that would be nice.
Today was one of those days where I felt so inspired and so giddy by the things I see going on in the world — all the good people out there — that it left my head spinning.
I got a FedEx package and squealed with delight as Quinn brought it to me. I ripped it open to find something I have been waiting for very impatiently for days — your very own SpiritHood! I burst into tears as I examined it and watched Quinn put it on his head. I contacted SpiritHoods about a year ago, telling them how much you loved yours, asked them if they would donate some to us to hand out to all the sweet bald-headed kids on the cancer floor, and that led to this.
“I was wondering if you would consider making a Spicy Monkey SpiritHood in honor of Ronan, with a portion of the proceeds going to his foundation.”
We talked about what it would look like and decided that the inside would be purple for you, and there would also be a big, fat gold ribbon for childhood cancer on the inside as well.
The owner of SpiritHoods, Chase, was on board immediately. I was excited then. I am over the moon excited now. To actually physically have the sample in my hands today felt so amazing. Like it was actual, hard proof that your little short life is so impactful. I emailed Chase back and told him thank you so much for not only supporting you, Ronan, but for all the awareness this will bring for these kids who so desperately need it. Not to mention all the bald-headed babes they are going to help keep warm in the arctic tundra of hospitals. I’m so excited and so proud to be a part of something that I know you would have loved. It may seem like a small feat in the grand scheme of things, Ro, but to me it means the world.
This is all I can do tonight, little man. I need to blog about so much more!
OMG! Like our GOLD PARTY on September 28th that Bret Michaels is throwing with us. I promise more details soon on that!
And OMG! The family pictures we had taken today — minus our full family because it was just me, Poppy, and your brothers. It felt so weird, but I got through it as best as I could. I need to brag my life away about the sweet soul who took our pictures, etc.
I promise to do so soon. I am just too wiped to do so as of now. I have to get some shut-eye.
I miss you. I love you. I hope you are safe. Sweet dreams, baby doll.
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