But, then, while mowing the yard Thursday afternoon, I remembered a conversation Ryan and I had about a year ago. He randomly told me that he loved reading my blog, and was always excited when he saw I had posted something new. He said he liked how honest my writing appeared to be, and he said he felt like anyone could relate to most of the stuff I wrote about, even if it was a story straight from my own life. I'm not sure any critique of my writing has resonated so strongly. I told him how much it helped me make sense of things, sometimes. I told him how it was like turning the heat down on a boiling pot of water. It could calm the violence. It could quiet the noise. I told him to try it...Maybe it would help.
So, this time, I'm not writing for me. I'm writing for him. And his family. And all the people that loved him, because, like me, they're all hurting right now.
Ryan wasn't my very first friend. Aside from my sister or a couple of my cousins, that designation goes to Josh Riley, whom I met at St. Matthews Pre-School when I was four years old. We were "buds," as he always liked to say. Josh was the lone guest at my 5th birthday party at Showbiz Pizza in February 1990 (I have photographic evidence to prove it), but after the pre-school year ended in May, I don't think we spoke again until we were teammates on the 7th-grade football team. But, Ryan was my first "best" friend.
We met in 1st grade at Benton Elementary, that much I know. It's strange, though, because you'd assume something as life-altering as meeting your first best friend would be something you'd always remember. But I don't. I only have a handful of memories of anything from my life before he came along, so it's like to me, he was always there. One of the first vivid memories I have of our friendship happened in the hallways of the old Benton Elementary building. It was at the end of the school year, and we were talking about how we were both going to play baseball for the Dodgers that summer. Neither of us really knew what a "dodger" was, so we started acting like we were dodging objects being thrown at us, like a dodger was a badass mascot of some kind, like a Wildcat or Lion or something. I'm sure to the average onlooker we probably looked ridiculous, but we thought it was awesome (as a side note to that: I remember being jealous of Ryan because he had legitimate stirrup socks that actually matched our uniforms. You know, the ones that fit over plain white socks. I, in my impatient excitement, had my mom buy me those cheap "stirrups" with a royal blue stripe running up the vertical side, because I knew we were the Dodgers and their primary color was royal blue, before finding out our uniforms were inexplicably navy blue, despite the fact Dodger blue is absolutely not navy blue).
While my memory isn't totally clear, I'm fairly certain my first sleepover was at Ryan's house. Eric Johnston's house was a few hundred feet away, so he'd always come over, too. We used to play tournaments on RBI Baseball for Nintendo in his basement. We'd play basketball in his driveway, and kickball in the yard next to his house. To this day, the only broken bone I've ever had occurred during one of those epic kickball battles. I dove with the ball in my hands, trying to tag my sister, and fractured my left hand in the process.
The first time he spent the night at my house, I remember crying from the frustration of being unable to fall asleep because he snored so loudly. I went to my parent's room complaining, begging my mom to do something, anything, to make it stop. I ended up with a blanket on the couch.
As we grew up, sports was always at the center of our friendship (and continued to be until the end). Some of my most cherished memories from my childhood come from All-Star baseball teams, and the Bulldogs. Or the battles we shared on the basketball court as teammates in the county league. In 4th grade, we won the league championship, mostly because Matt Henson scored 90% of our points. In 8th grade, we were on the green YMCA team together. In the league tournament, I missed a free throw in the closing seconds that would've tied the game and send the game to overtime, but Ryan got the offensive rebound. He was hacked on his put-back attempt, but it wasn't called, and his potential-game winner barely rimmed out.
When we both played on the Bulldogs, most of my memories don't even come from time on the field. They come from our time together with one another, and our teammates, off it. The NBA Jam tournament we played in Austin Beck's mom's van on the way to Tarkio, Missouri for the CABA World Series. Homerun derbies in the field in front of our hotel with foam bats and balls we all got at Pizza Hut, mimicking our favorite players' batting stances. Hotel High Jump in Caleb Curtner's hotel room. Counting the number of times I could sneeze after tapping myself in the nose. I'll never forget those days.
Ryan was one of those rare people that just didn't have enemies. I mean, for the love of God, I can't think of a single person on this planet that didn't like him. We all strive, whether intentional or not, to be liked. To be liked by virtually everyone, Ryan didn't even have to try. He made being liked just look so. Damn. Easy. He was easy to talk to. He could fit in with literally any group of people, and could do it flawlessly. I had different groups of friends, to be sure, but never felt even a slight hesitation about including Ryan with any of them. He had an uncanny ability to find common ground with anyone he came in contact with, and could read people better than anyone I've ever been around. It just came so naturally to him. And he could make you laugh. God, could he make you laugh.
I've written before about how I feel like life, as we grow older, becomes segmented. We tend to designate certain times in our lives to particular files in our memory, like a card catalogue. Early-childhood, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, post-college-pre-marriage, marriage, marriage-pre-kids, marriage-post-kids, etc. It's totally arbitrary, but that's basically how it goes for me. We don't always sit around and contemplate the individuals that come and go, and how they indent themselves into particular eras of our lifetimes. But, times like now, when we lose someone who has had a profound impact on our life, we tend to do it. And Ryan's impact on my life is incredibly profound.
There are plenty of people that could say they had a closer relationship with him than I did, especially in the last 10 years or so. Truth be told, since we graduated high school, most of my interactions with Ryan were via text, or the occasional phone call. In fact, until today, the two of us hadn't been in the same room in almost a decade. But, despite that, I know our friendship was unique. Or, at the very least, it felt unique to me. You see, Ryan was one of those once-in-a-lifetime people we encounter that can make every single person in his life feel like the most important at any given moment. And now, as his sister, Noele, said on Facebook, "We will never be the same."
The Ryan I remember from our childhood and the Ryan I came to know towards the end are not the same person. He had his demons, and he had his struggles, and he reached out for help on numerous occasions. It would be easy to spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been if I had done or said something differently. God knows I'm going to, whether I want to or not. But, I also know that the Ryan I knew wouldn't want that. He'd want us all to remember the good times. He'd want us to remember the times he made us laugh (those are countless). He'd want us to remember that, at his best, he was an incredible father, brother, son, and friend...The type any one of us would like to have. He'd want us to picture him with a smile on his face, wearing his Reba McEntire shirt, and giggling as he quoted lines from Billy Madison or Major League. At his best, Ryan was really the best among us. So, I'm going to choose to remember him at his best. Quite frankly, the rest doesn't even matter.
Rest easy, brother. I love you.
