Ryan's Journal Entry....

About a week or two after Ryan died, I decided to open his backpack and empty it out.  This is the only thing I have done so far...one step at a time I keep saying.  In the front of his school binder were loose papers, which were journal entries, I'm assuming for his English class.  I read through them all, so grateful to have little pieces of Ryan's heart and mind.  Treasures to keep, knowing they were his recent thoughts and feelings on various topics.  One of the journals sent chills through me...it was written just days before he died.

"I ve been thinking about what I want to do before I die for a long time.  I've come to a conclusion that there are three specific things that I feel like I need to do before I die.  The first thing I want to do is go skydiving.  I'm into big thrills and I don't know of anything more accelerating then jumping out of an airplane.  The only thing is that you have to be eighteen to be able to do it, so I'm hoping I make it past eighteen.  The second thing I want to do before I die is to travel the world.  I've never been out of the U.S. and I'm interested in what other countries are like.  The third thing that I want to do before I die is to get a meaningful tatoo.  Probably something to do with my mom."

Interesting enough, immediately after Ryan died his dad and two older brothers, Jeremy and Sean, got a tattoo in honor of Ryan..."a meaningful tatoo."  Since Ryan mentioned his tatoo probably would have something to do with me, I am also thinking of some small tatoo I could get to honor my little boy, giving to him what I know he wanted to give to me.  Ryan's sister and brother (Shawndre and Sean) plan to live out Ryan's dream and go skydiving one day soon.  I will go with them so I can share in their bittersweet moments of living out their little brother's dream for him,  and so I can tell them how incredibly proud I am that they would do that for Ryan.  Ryan's little sister, Kaitie, asked how she could live out a dream.   I told her that Ryan wanted to travel so perhaps she could be the one that traveled for him, which seemed to make her happy.   Ryan knew I traveled to many countries when I was in college, but this is something I never knew he wanted to do as well.  I am so grateful Ryan has brothers and sisters with loving and giving hearts....hearts that completely love their brother, and love him so much, they are determined to make sure his dreams are fullfilled.  And I know Ryan would have done the same for each of them.  However, I am also just consumed with sadness that my Ryan wasn't given the opportunity, or the time, to live out his own dreams.