RONAN

This is the first time ever that I fell in love with a song that I COULDN'T BEAR listening to it for another time. Gotta admit that I'm an emotional mess but with lyrics like THAT -- An honest & devastating true account of a mother dealing with heartbreak and loss of a 4 y.o. child to terminal cancer -- it's just too painful to swallow, even for non-parents like us, as if we could paint the scenes out and really feel the heartache. Nothing is sadder than losing one's child and there's nothing one can do about it. 


This tear-jerking ballad is about a boy named Ronan, who succumbed to stage four neuroblastoma cancer just three days shy of his 4th birthday in May 2011. His mother, Maya Thompson, chronicled his journey fighting the cancer through blog posts in rockstarronan, and when all hope is vain, it turned into a mum's grieving platform. 

Thompson's heartfelt posts caught Taylor Swift's attention and touched her so much that she wrote a song for Ronan, almost entirely using those honest & heartfelt words of Thompson in her blog posts (hence crediting her as co-writer of the song), crafting this incredibly heart-felt song. With lyrics like:

'I remember your bare feet down the hallway/I remember your little laugh/Race cars on the kitchen floor/Plastic dinosaurs/I love you to the moon and back'

-- who could blame you for bawling your eyes out? And the lyrics of the chorus:

'Come on baby with me/We're gonna fly away from here/Out of this curtained room in this hospital/We'll just disappear/Come on baby with me/We're gonna fly away from here/You were my best four years'

-- according to Thompson, are some of the last words she whispered to Ronan before he passed away in her arms.


I thought nothing could top NewSong's 'The Christmas Shoes', and boy I was so wrong. I was already a mess the first time I watched Swift's debut performance of this song at SU2C last week (Stand Up To Cancer, a telethon charity event in US to raise funds for cancer research), got all choked up halfway through. Now thinking about it for too long will also cause some emotional tides within, and I don't even dare to read the mum's blog coz I know it will get worse from there.

I highly recommend this song. Read the lyrics -they are POIGNANT and POWERFUL, a mum's devastatingly heartfelt words to a departed son, told though Thompson's perspertive -; get to know the back story, get to know Maya Thompson and her boy Ronan, the boy with a pair of the most beautiful blue eyes, get to know the cancer, and then the song --- the aptly titled "Ronan".


Mad props to Taylor Swift for reaching out to the Thompsons and composing this hauntingly beautiful song to keep his memories alive, and raising awareness about pediatric cancer to the public. It's also worth to note that all proceeds of this single sales are 100% going to cancer charities.


Maya Thompson's blog --- rockstarronan.com
Her letter to Swift, written from Ronan's perpestive --- http://rockstarronan.com/2011/10/22/a-love-letter-to-taylor-swift/

Watch below: Taylor Swift's performance of RONAN at SUTC.
Keep some Kleenex nearby, you may need it.

Hope you'll like it as much as I do =)




RONAN Lyrics

Written by Taylor Swift & Maya Thompson

I remember your bare feet down the hallway

I remember your little laugh

Race cars on the kitchen floor

Plastic dinosaurs, I love you to the moon and back



I remember your blue eyes looking into mine like we had our own

secret club

I remember you dancing before bed time then jumping on me waking

me up

I can still feel you hold my hand

Little man, from even that moment I knew

You fought it hard like an army guy

Remember I leaned in and whispered to you



Chorus:

Come on baby with me

We're gonna fly away from here

You were my best four years



I remember the drive home when the blind hope

Turned to crying and screaming, "Why?"

Flowers piled up in the worst way

No one knows what to say about a beautiful boy who died



And it's about to be Halloween

You could be anything you wanted if you were still here

I remember the last day when I kissed your face

I whispered in your ear



Come on baby with me

We're gonna fly away from here

Out of this curtained room in this hospital

We'll just disappear

Come on baby with me

We're gonna fly away from here

You were my best four years



What if I'm standing in your closet trying to talk to you?

What if I kept the hand me downs you won't grow into?

And what if I really thought some miracle would see us through?

But what if the miracle was even getting one moment with you



Come on baby with me

We're gonna fly away from here

Come on baby with me

We're gonna fly away from here

You were my best four years



I remember your bare feet down the hallway

I love you to the moon and back   


       

 

R.I.P. Ronan