Mother’s Day is a difficult day to celebrate for Ryan Dorsey.
Naya Rivera’s ex-husband took to Instagram on Monday to lament about how tough it was to get their son through the holiday nearly two years after the actress’ tragic death.
Related: Naya Rivera’s Family Settles Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Alongside a series of photos of 6-year-old Josey with his late mom, Ryan wrote:
“I woke up thinking about so much. Josey with his grandma & me by myself. I don’t text Happy Mothers Day b/c that seems like an insane thing to do considering. My mind full of so many thoughts. So many things. So many things to do this Sunday but first thing on the list was to get on with it & head to my least favorite place in the world.”
That “least favorite place” he’s talking about visiting is Naya’s grave at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles. So you can see why he wanted to avoid going…
Ryan, who split from the Glee alum in 2018, went on to write that he “tried to go back to sleep for a little longer as if I could just dream through reality and postpone real life a bit longer,” but as he lay in bed, he thought of memories of himself with his own mother:
“Flashes of memories of me as a little boy at his age w/ my mom turned into some gratitude for the years I’ve had & still have, turns into the times my son & I had with his and how they were stopped… I know how this day is going to go. Plenty of time for water works, but not now. I fight it & up I get.”
Describing what went through his mind on the drive to the memorial, he explained how every thought turned to Rivera, who died in a drowning accident in 2020:
“On the way there’s places I pass that bring back times. This is where we took him when he was little that one time…Damn, we had dinner there. That’s the street I used to live on when we first met…she used to live there on Magnolia. Flowers sold out where I used to always get them. I’ll just get some on the way… I miss my exit as I feel like I didn’t blink for 10 minutes as my mind was wandering with so many flashes. The harder I think about things, it’s harder to believe. Un-fu*king-believable, still that this is reality. That this is our real life and I have to blink hard & shake my head as if to snap out of it & grasp the facts of it all once and for all.”
Arriving is the worst part, as he writes:
“Turning onto Forest Lawn Drive will alway bring the memory of two summers ago. But the memories prior to that I have to be grateful for & our son.”
He concluded the gut-wrenching note:
“Hug your mommas and grandmas, and love ‘em while you can. Forgive & forget, if you can. You don’t wanna maybe wish what if you did one day.”
So incredibly poignant.
Read Ryan’s full post (below).
[Image via Adriana M. Barraza/WENN/Instagram]
