Six Years

by Samantha Ronan

With the date March 28th quickly approaching, it becomes harder to notthink about where I was emotionally at this time six years ago.

To think that we were only 16–sophomores in high school–on our spring break, when we were hit with possibly the worst news any kid could hear. Mike’s cancer was winning and he was going on hospice.

Mike had been fighting his battle for almost 4 years. There were good days, bad days, great days, and horrible days. The most incredible part of those 4 years was that our friend group became the strongest and closest it had ever been. We spent every weekend going out on adventures and experiencing life with Mike because we never knew what was going to happen. There were six girls and seven guys, and it was always the 13 of us. Mike’s mom would drive the boys, and Maggie’s mom would drive the girls. We went tubing down the Delaware River, snow tubing at Mountain Creek, we would race down to Point Pleasant Boardwalk, attend baseball games, football games, and had countless beach days. We’d all gather and go because we wanted to make Mike happy and do life with him while we all could.

March 15, 2013

When March of 2013 came, it was the peak for sweet 16 birthday parties. Our group easily attended at least one every weekend. This is when we realized something was wrong. Mike wasn’t able to attend a few of the parties, and I remember sitting at a table with everyone and we knew something was up. For the sake of the party, we decided to let Mike and his family have their space and figure it out. A few days later, Maggie’s mom picked up the girls to drive us to Mike’s house. On the way there, she pulled into a parking lot around the corner from his house, and gave us some pretty bad news.

Mike’s brain cancer was getting worse.

I will never forget the night in that car. Dead silent. And then finally an eruption from Emily, and then one by one we all cried with each other.

Maggie’s mom and Mike’s mom agreed to let us come over and hang out with Mike and talk as a friend group. So, we all gathered and you would not even believe that you were in a room with 16 year olds. We sat, we talked, and we said we were going to make it through this, just like we always had for 4 years. This time was no different, we were going to come out strong.

March 22, 2013

With spring break approaching, we were all ready to be our crazy adventurous selves with Mike and his family. Except, that was not what was going to happen. When things got bad with Mike, the kids were kept out of the loop until we were all together and we could hear from either Maggie’s mom, or Mike’s mom. This time was different. I remember laying in my bed before track practice, and both of my parents came into my room, which is weird in itself because my parents are divorced. They told me Mike was going on hospice, and that it was not looking very good. The 3 of us cried, and outside was Maggie’s mom and the rest of the girls waiting for me to come in. We spent the day together making collages from all our memories.

March 28, 2013

Emily and I were at track practice and it was, for the most part, a normal morning. While we are at track practice, we are obviously not on our phones and busy running. During the second half of practice I figured why not go grab my phone and check what time it was. The first thing I saw on my phone is a text from a random classmate, “Sam I am so sorry.” I then continued to notice I had a million text messages from so many different people and without even reading what they say, I immediately called my mom and asked her if it’s true. It was; she didn’t want us to find out until after practice.

Mike died.

I ran so fast to my friend Emily, in tears and she immediately knew. Maggie’s mom was waiting for us already and took us to all of our friends back at her house. I will never forget watching my best guy friends, who had been the strongest of us all during this time, in the car sobbing. It happened. We were broken.

March 25, 2019

As I sit here writing this, I am getting emotional. This isn’t something that people don’t know at home; it ruled our lives for 4 years. We were known as the friend group making an impact in our community. But I've come to realize that I never actually sat down and wrote about it. It’s not that I don’t like telling people my story, I just have this weird sense of guilt sharing it, and I really have no explanation for it. My friends used our story for their college essays, but I could never get myself to do it. It’s not wrong to use this story or to write about it. I just have a hard time when people feel bad for me. I don’t want anyone reading this to feel bad for me either. Because of Mike, we all lived these crazy teenage years. We did everything we possibly could and wanted to. We were living and we were doing it not just for Mike, but with him.

Hope, Faith, Courage. Forever.

Sam Ronan