No One Wants You (31 page)

‘Yes,’ he said.

With that, I just broke down in tears. I could not hold back the flow. The tears streamed down my cheeks as if they were eroding them.

My heart was broken.

I was inconsolable.

The muscles in the back of my throat were constricted so hard that I could hardly breathe between long racking sobs. I wanted to go with him. At that point I wanted my life to be over. But for some perverse reason, I had to live on.

Ronan had told me so.

I was not to give up.

Of all the many and cruel things that had happened to me during my life, this was the worst. No physical pain had hurt like this. Of all the times that I had wanted to end my life, I was surely justified on this occasion.

But Ronan had said, ‘No.’

I wondered why I had to endure so much punishment in this life.

Sometime later, it must have been around midnight, the chaplain, Father Gallagher, silently came in to me. He suggested that I freshen up. I went to an area where parents and relatives gathered to make a cup of tea and sit down. I asked someone for a cigarette. I have no idea why I did that. I must have thought that they provided some solace at times like these. During my work I had seen many relatives of patients go for a much-needed smoke, from which they gained some obvious satisfaction. All that happened to me was that I coughed and spluttered. The smoke that I did inhale just made me feel dizzy.

I went to the ladies’ to wash my face and threw the cigarette down the toilet. That was the first and only cigarette that I have ever smoked.

I could not stay away from Ronan. I went back to him immediately.

This was the first night that Harry was staying at the hospital with me and he went to bed.

I was there alone with Ronan. He was a bit restless. At four in the morning I took him out of his bed to sit in my lap.

I had a white blouse on. I opened the blouse so that he could feel closer to my skin and feel safer.

I talked to him.

I told him how much I had wanted him to be born.

I told him how much I loved him.

I told him how much his big brother loved him.

I told him how much his dad loved him.

He died in my arms at a quarter to five in the morning.

TWENTY

Loss of My Life

I WAS NUMB
.

I held my dead son in my arms for a while.

I could not let him go, physically.

I could not let him go, emotionally.

The nurse came back and I sort of mouthed the words, ‘He is gone.’

No sound came.

But she knew and asked, ‘Where is your husband?’

I was unable to answer or to even lift my head in response. She found him after some time. He came into the room and stood at the opposite side of the bed from where I was sitting with our dead son in my arms. I lashed out verbally at him and shouted, ‘You couldn’t even stay awake with me, even for one night. Our beautiful Ronan is dead.’

He didn’t say anything.

I then put Ronan on the bed and Harry kissed his forehead. The nurse had taken away all the tubes and said that she wanted ‘to lay him out’. I said that I did not want him removed from the ward before his brother had seen him. I asked Harry to call home and tell Thelma what had happened. I did not want her to tell Anthony the bad news. I wanted to tell him myself.

It was 6 am.

While Harry was phoning, I washed Ronan with the nurse. I put white socks on him. He wanted his Thomas the Tank pyjamas, but he never got to wear them because of all the equipment and tubes. I dressed him in the Thomas the Tank pyjamas with tears silently cascading down my cheeks. I thought, ‘Little did you know that when you asked for them, you would be dead before you got to wear them.’

Between sobs, I would try to steady myself. I would blow out long exhalations of air to obtain some form of breathing. I put a little toy monkey that Thelma had given to him under his right arm and under his left arm I put a little toy dog that Maria had given to him. As I looked at him, I had a flashback to my first day in the orphanage in Limerick, when I looked at my brown leather handbag with my name on it for the last time.

I realised then, that Ronan was never mine to keep.

He was only ever on loan to me.

I had to give him back.

I thought that Thelma and my parents would bring Anthony into the hospital immediately, but they did not arrive until 9 am. I had no idea what delayed them, but I was anxious to tell Anthony about his brother. When Anthony came in, I was waiting to talk to him.

The first thing he said to me was, ‘I knew Ronan would get better. He is all right isn’t he?’

‘No darling, he is not all right. Ronan is gone to Heaven. I am going to take you to see him now. He is going to feel different. He is going to feel cold when you touch him.’

I took Anthony in to see his little brother. My parents were in the room already. Thelma was there with Harry. My parents both held me briefly. Harry did not touch me or try to comfort me in any way. He might have been afraid to.

Anthony said, ‘He is so cold.’ That is why I had wanted Thelma and my parents to bring Anthony into the hospital
as
soon as possible. I did not want Anthony to feel the coldness. I wanted Ronan to still be warm.

They took Ronan to the hospital chapel. We left the hospital to go home at midday. Before we could go home we had to go to an office in Camden to register the death. I did all the necessary form filling.

I felt alone, empty and numb. Another part of me had died.

Harry said, ‘He is better off in Heaven.’

That was not the way I saw it. I wanted him back.

If I could not have him back, I wanted to be where Ronan was.

We finally reached home. Michael Roberts was probably the most upset. He cried for Ronan. I had never seen a member of the Roberts family cry until that day, and I have never seen one cry since.

People appeared from everywhere. Friends came and neighbours too.

My GP came round to see if I needed him, even though he politely said that he did not want to intrude on my private time. It was very good of him, but I decided that I was not going to take any form of medication.

I was hard.

I was tough.

I would get through without it.

Someone asked me if I wanted a drink. I thought that if I started drinking, I would never stop. I resolved not to have any alcohol while this entire crisis was going on around me. I had survived on sandwiches, supplied by my friend Angela and her husband Peter, while I was in the hospital. They even used to take away my washing. I only left Ronan to wash and change my clothes. I couldn’t stay away for long.

During the day Harry and his brother Paddy went to the local graveyard, Streatham Cemetery, and bought a burial plot. Paddy paid Harry £1000 towards burial expenses. I was
very
grateful. They also secured an undertaker to take Ronan from the hospital to a funeral parlour, and from there, to the church.

Eventually I went to bed in a single bed in Ronan’s room, because my parents were in our bedroom and Thelma was in the small bedroom. Harry and I had been sleeping in the single bed. Ronan and Anthony slept in bunk beds in their own room. Harry was already asleep when I went in. I lay down exhausted. I was in a bed for the first time in about two weeks, because I had been with Ronan all the time. I felt totally drained in every sense.

I cried for all the losses of my life. Long muscle-wrenching sobs racked my body.

I had wanted to comfort Anthony and find out how he was really feeling about the loss of his brother but I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel anything except my own pain. It was the worst pain of my entire life.

The week was just a blur of people coming and going.

On Saturday I cleaned the house from top to bottom with Thelma. I gave my mother money to buy whatever food was needed.

On Sunday, Harry’s sister Alice, my brothers Tommy and Niall, along with Miriam Cooke, arrived from Ireland. Kit and Tony didn’t stay for the funeral. Kit said they’d visit later when everything had died down.

We went to the funeral parlour to collect Ronan’s remains. Angela’s sister Peggy said the rosary there. I had never gone to the undertakers to see Ronan ‘laid out’. I couldn’t. I was not able to see him like that.

He was there for almost a week. The reason that he was there for so long was that in London you have to wait for a slot for burial, as there are so many funerals taking place at the same time. When I got there and saw him in the coffin, I thought that his head was too low. I asked for another pillow, which they placed under his head.

One of Harry’s bosses arrived, holding his young son in his arms. When the young child saw Ronan in the coffin, he asked his father, ‘Is that the baby Jesus, Dad?’

I wanted to scream. I just smiled and acted as if it meant nothing and did not bother me. I was good at acting.

I walked out before they closed the coffin. I just couldn’t take anymore. But as I walked out I couldn’t avoid hearing the sound of them closing it. It felt as if they were tightening the screws into my heart.

We all left the funeral parlour together. Ronan was brought to the church for six o’clock mass at St Michael’s Church, Clapham. After a brief service at the church, more people came to the house. My neighbours kept everyone fed with sandwiches. Most of the women and nearly all of the men went to the pub, which was also close by. I tried to keep busy by preparing food for after the funeral the next day. Angela cooked many legs of lamb, which I spent the evening carving. All the food was brought over to the church hall for the next morning.

That night, after having been to the pub, Terence O’Regan came back to the house before the others. He knew that things were difficult between my parents and I. He said to me, ‘Why do you put up with their behaviour? Why can’t you block it out?’

‘They are my parents and I have waited a long time to have them in my life. I love them,’ I said.

But I was all mixed up in my mind, because as I was saying that, I was thinking, ‘Is the death of my child, the price I have to pay for finding my parents? If I had known that it was the price I had to pay, I would never have begun the search. If it was the price that I had to pay for finding my parents, it was not a fair trade.’

Nothing could ever be worth the price of my child’s life.

Crazy thoughts were flying around in my head. I even
wondered
when he was dying, did the gypsies curse him, because my mother had refused them water?

Next morning, it was Monday, February 17th, 1986. I got up after a mainly sleepless night. I had maintained my resolve not to take any medication or alcohol. It had been snowing overnight and a light, icy residue remained on the ground. Angela gave me a sheepskin coat to wear to keep out the cold. I left everybody in the house and went to the church. I wanted to be with Ronan on my own.

It was not to be.

When I got there, my friend and colleague Lily O’Donohue was already there with her husband Paddy. They both hugged me. I thought that they were some of the very few people who could really understand what I was going through, because they themselves had lost their only son. His name was Tony and he was their only child. He died suddenly at the age of twenty from a brain haemorrhage.

I didn’t notice who arrived next.

Suddenly my pew at the front of the church was full.

Suddenly the entire church was full of people.

I did not get my private moment alone with my baby.

The service began.

Thelma read the lesson. The priest said that the Roberts were no strangers to suffering. He meant it in the context of my having lost two other unborn children and my having had a lot of surgery. As he said it, I remember thinking, ‘If only you and the entire congregation really knew all of the suffering I have had to go through.’

He probably said a lot of nice things about Ronan, but I didn’t hear them. I wanted to be with Ronan. As soon as the service began it was over. Michael Roberts, Tommy Junior and Niall, friends Peter Lynch and Peter Sweeney, carried the small mahogany coffin, containing my young son’s dead body, to the hearse for the short journey to his final resting
place
, at Streatham Cemetery. I had asked Harry and Paddy to choose a burial plot with trees close by.

Ronan loved climbing trees.

When I first saw the spot, there were not any proper trees around it. It wasn’t what I would have picked myself. That part of the graveyard seemed neglected and old. I was upset about that but I did not say anything about it to anyone.

We had two funeral cars, with Harry, Anthony, my parents and myself in the leading one, following the hearse. When I reached the place that my baby was to be interred, for time immemorial, I felt that I did not want to see it.

I wanted to run away and hide.

I did not want to face it. It was just all too horrible, too cruel. I did not want to have to bury my baby. I just kept thinking, ‘Why? Why isn’t it me?’

He had so much to live for. I had so much to escape from, so many memories to leave behind, why couldn’t I have died? I couldn’t understand it.

Everyone was saying to me that I had to live and be strong for Anthony and Harry. I wanted to say, ‘I don’t want to live for myself, how could I want to live for anyone else?’ But no one would want to listen to me.

I remained emotionally destitute but silent.

The same men carried the coffin from the hearse to the grave. The undertakers lowered the coffin down into the grave, as the priest led the large crowd in some prayers. I couldn’t identify the prayers. When the prayers were over, the undertaker laid the wreaths around the grave. It was a large amount of flowers. There were 125 wreaths in total.

I felt that I was no longer able to stand so I went to the funeral car and got in.

Nobody got in with me and no one followed me.

I sat there alone.

Anthony came next. I said to him, ‘Whatever are we going to do without him, darling?’ He did not reply. We
just
both cried in reply. We returned to the church hall. I only stayed for a short time and then I returned to the house.