Ronan. Do I even have words to write about what happened today? How can I find the words to write about this tonight? It’s taken me about 10 hours to process the phone call I got this morning. It all started with a voicemail.

“Hey Maya, it’s Taylor Swift…”

“What???” I thought to myself. Taylor Swift just called my cell phone. O.k. take a few minutes and process this. I was waiting for your Mr. Sparkly Eyes, so I sat with this voicemail for about 30 minutes, until I was done visiting with him. It was only after I was getting up to leave that I said to him, “Taylor Swift left me a voicemail earlier.” I let him listen to it. “Really? You need to call her back,” he said. I calmly said, “I will do so, when I leave here. I wonder what she wants.” He chuckled and said, “You are something else. Nobody else in their right mind would be calm about something like that.” I left there smiling with not a clue as to what was to come.

I got into my car and was headed to Dr. JoRo’s office, but I decided to pull over to return Taylor’s phone call. I was expecting to talk to her mom, since she had told me on her voicemail that she was getting on a flight to New York City. To my surprise, I was patched into Taylor herself.

“Hi Maya! How are you?” she said in that sweet darling voice of hers.

“Hi Taylor! I am well, how are you?” as if she was just another one of my everyday friends.

My calmness soon turned to complete and utter frozen shock when these words came out of her mouth.

“I wrote a song for Ronan,” she said. The tears started pouring down my cheeks as soon as I heard her say those words. But her words didn’t stop there. Not only did she write a song for you, but she wanted to know if it would be alright to preform it on the nationally televised Stand Up 2 Cancer show which is on every major network and is seen in over 100 countries. She wanted to know if she could use a picture of you in the background while she sang the song. She wanted to make me co author of the song with her. She talked about how from reading this blog and following our story, has inspired her and how amazing she thinks I am and all I am doing, to bring awareness to childhood cancer. She went on and on about some other things, which I tried to understand and reply to, but I couldn’t focus on a thing besides the fact that she wrote a song, for you. That she hadn’t forgotten about your beautiful blue eyes and our love story. One so powerful that Taylor Swift decided to write a song about it. This cannot be real. But then I remembered, this was you she was talking about. Of course this is real, because you are that beautiful and that amazing and our love is that strong. I don’t even remember what I said to Taylor as had buried my head into your blanket that I take with me everywhere and all I could pretty much do was cry and tell her thank you. How do you even find the words to thank somebody for something like this? I was a blubbering mess telling her how much this meant to me as she was helping me keep your memory alive and helping me to do amazing things. How if I had to pick my dream person to be tied to your name, it would be her because she is full of so much pure goodness, just like you.

I got off the phone and I was shaking, crying, and could not even form a thought. I called your daddy. He was so quiet after I told him the news. I yelled at him in the phone, “Are you there? Why are you so quiet?” He said he was so quiet because he was crying. He couldn’t believe what had just happened.

My day was shot after that. I picked your brothers up and let them listen to the voicemail from Taylor. They were both smiling but couldn’t wait to tell me about who got hit in the face with a football at recess. I had to act like that story was half as exciting as the one I had just told them. Good thing my acting skills are becoming better. Yeah, football story… just as awesome as my Taylor Swift story. You gotta love 9 year old boys, right:)

I have been thinking about this all day long. I am not proud of myself very much anymore because you died and that just ruins any sort of goodness that I am able to feel most of the time. Because of the whole, I was your mama, I promised you I would get you better, and I didn’t. To me, that is still unforgivable. I know your cancer was out of my hands, Ro, but you know it destroys me that I broke my promise to you. Today, I let myself be a little proud. Do you know why? It’s because of that whole following my heart thing. When Taylor invited me to her concert last year and I had the chance to spend a little time with her, I just knew she was going to do something amazing, on her terms and her time. I had so many people trying to push me and saying, “You need to reach out to Taylor Swift. See if she can help you get X,Y, and Z done for Ronan’s Foundation. See if she will donate this or that or do this or that.” I just responded with, “No thank you. I’m not going to do that.” People looked at me as if I were crazy, but asking something of Taylor, just felt wrong. I always kept it to myself why it was that I was not going to reach out to this very generous girl, who out of the kindness of her heart, invited me to her concert, only to take to time to talk about you, with me. To me, that was enough. I was so thankful just to hear her say your name out loud. That was so much more then I could have ever asked for. I always went back to, if Taylor does something for Ronan, it will be something completely organic and natural, not because she felt pressured or forced to. Not because I asked her to. I didn’t ask, Ronan. I sat back and just let the world work in the way which I have always known it would… because it was meant to be. Because I feel the best things that happen in the world, just happen naturally, when they are supposed to and when the universe comes together. I mean, I get the news that I am pregnant only to find out about a week later, that Taylor Swift wrote a song just for you?? That is you working your magic in a way that I cannot even wrap my head around. It’s been so long since I’ve had so much good come our way that I don’t even know what to do with it all.

It’s been 5 days since I got the Taylor call. I’m having to keep this hush hush for now which I totally understand. I am still in complete and utter shock at this point. The timing of all of this is really unbelievable. How the stars and the universe are just aligning at just the right time. How everything that I knew would happen, is just falling into place, naturally. The way that I always trusted in myself and you, to make this all happen. If you had to die Ronan, and I have to live on this earth without you… you can be damn sure, I am going to make something amazing come out of it. This is by far, the most amazing thing that I could ever have imagined… times 1,000,000,0000. I could not have dreamed up any of this happening, in my head. How that girl, with the most sparkling blue eyes, that remind me so much of you… is about to finally give a face and a voice to childhood cancer that it needs so desperately. Now, people will want to pay attention. Now, maybe childhood cancer will get the awareness/funding/and attention that it deserves. Now, maybe less children will die in the future due to somebody huge, stepping up and caring. Taylor Swift, just changed the face of this disease and all I can do is sit here and sob about it. But I am sobbing in a way that I never sob anymore. Because I am so unbelievably happy, Ronan. This is all because of you and our love story. One that will live on forever and do such good things in this world. All with the help of an amazing girl who just happens to be named, Taylor Swift. She could have done this for anybody, Ronan. Anybody. But she didn’t. She did this for you and for us. Because she knows and believes in us so much, that she is giving us the biggest gift that we could have ever received. The gift of an eternal love story between a mother and a child. One that will never end. One that will keep on living forever and soon the entire world is going to know about the most beautiful little boy, who changed the lives of so many because of the love he had for the short life that he lived on this earth.

I love you to the moon and back my spicy monkey boy. Thank you for all you are doing. Thank you, Taylor for this gift you have given us. I promise to make you both proud of all the goodness that is going to come.

I miss you, Ronan. I miss you, I love you and I hope you are safe.

xoxo