Seven things I learned from My Son Ryan by Ron Hirn
It’s interesting how life runs in cycles. As I was a boy I was hazed at the knowledge of those around me. It seemed to me that I was the slowest wit in a group of gifted people. By the time I reached junior high, however, I realized that I had been wrong all along. My friends and I were the gifted ones, the world was full of pretenders, and there wasn't anything left for me to figure out. My parents, of course, had out-grown their usefulness, but I would go on living with them and make believe I hadn't noticed. After I moved out though, concerns such as rent, food, and clothing costs forced me to admit that maybe moving out wasn't such a bright idea but, by then, i couldn't think of a way to move back in. With still more time and a few more bruises. I once again began to think that I had life figured out. And then my son, Ryan, came along. I prided myself on teaching him the alphabet and soccer and flattered myself that I was a good teacher, but as I look back I now see that I was actually still learning and that 1 was learning more important lessons than I was teaching.
LESSON 1
Appreciate Life
I don't recall just when, but some time ago it seemed to me that I had stopped running my life and It began running me. I think life just sneaks up on you. You are deciding on a career and choosing the mate who will share your vision. You know where you want to go and are taking the steps that will lead you there. But somewhere along that path between the mortgage, the in-laws, the bills, and the new experience of sharing decisions that now affect two people, life seems to become a runaway train; all thought of being in control has flown out the window and you just concentrate on hanging on. Happily, in the midst of ibis whirlwind, are events which force you to stop and thank God for the opportunity to take this wild ride. For me that time came when they first laid my son upon my wife's chest. He came into the world a wiggling, screaming, 8 pound, 15 ounce stranger, but at my wife's first words he stopped crying and the three of us instantly became a family. For the three of us, together in that little room, at that moment the world stood still. Then the wonder of life makes you pause, your heart fills and you are young again and in awe.
LESSON 2
Smiles are infectious
They say that children possess knowledge the rest of us lose as we age.  One of these secrets is the power of the smile. Even the saltiest old curmudgeon can't resist the potency of a child's smile. Children learn this as they learn everything else, by trial and reward. They try a smile, people smile back, and they are rewarded with hugs and coos of pleasure. After a time, however, we grow to take a rather cynical view of the world; we forget that people respond to smiles and tend to look at another's smiling face and ask ourselves what that person really wants from us.
Babies can't smile when they are born. Sometimes I would look into Ryan's eyes and wonder what is going through his little mind. Is he happy, scared, does he recognize me as his father? Then one day your baby hears your voice or sees your face and his little mouth forms its first smile. It is then that you realize the power of a smile. It says, I love you, in a way that no poet or writer of songs has been able to capture in all the long years of human thought. I remember Ryan's first smile. And I knew that my heart was now linked to him in a way that time could never break.
LESSON 3
Explore your world
Babies begin to explore their world the instant they are born and continue to explore and learn at a remarkable rate. The concepts of light and darkness, breathing, touch, everything is new to them, and they attack and master each new concept. I think sometimes that the reason babies cannot see clearly for the first few months of life is to give them a chance to master some early concepts and not become overwhelmed by the myriad of new experiences. Once their vision does improve, they move on to learning about the
visual aspects of their world. Later, mobility allows them to investigate further; they draw on previous experiences and test their hypotheses about nature.
Children are fascinating to watch as they go through the process of discovery. Their thirst for exploration seems to be boundless. Ryan would crawl from one toy to the next, handling each, examining, and then discarding it for the next. And this process never seemed to end. As he grew, we simply laid out more interesting options, and he eagerly tested them all. flow much richer could our adult lives be if we too could retain our thirst for learning? Too often our jobs become tedious and our experiences commonplace. Even the hobbies we enjoy or the places we visit become dulled by routine, and unless we make a concentrated effort to change and to begin again as children to reach out for new things, the spark that is the soul of discovery fades from our lives.
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LESSON 4
Don't take yourself too seriously
The ability to laugh at ourselves is a trait which is so endearing and at once so noble that it is to be found in only the most self actualized individuals. All of us have had the experience of watching someone do something ridiculous or be surprised by a totally undesired outcome. if this unfortunate person then slinks away, cursing, or marches off, complaining at the top of his lungs, we inevitably find ourselves retelling the story to our friends with a, can you believe what this idiot did, inflection in our voice. But what happens when that same person commits the same blunder, stops for a moment, then looks you straight in the eye and starts laughing at his own foolishness? You start laughing too, don't you? And the difference is that now you are laughing at the situation and not at the person because you recognize yourself in similar situations in the past.
Ryan was great about this. He would accidentally squirt himself in the face with the hose and laugh or take a spill on his skates and then dust himself off with the most sheepish grin and let out a little giggle, so that you could not help laughing right along with him. He had an uncanny ability to stand above the situation, see his own foolishness and realize that everyone must have had the same thing happen to them. And who among us has not done something foolish from time to time.
LESSON 5
Don't Confuse intelligence with experience
Most everything we learn in life we learn by doing or by watching someone else. Once we have mastered those things that come our way we start to think of ourselves as more intelligent. But intelligence can appear to be relative based on the situation. I may think that I am smart because I can name ten impressionist painters, but drop me in Alaska with a group of guides and ask what Is the best bait for trapping mink and I am suddenly the village idiot. At some point, though, experience can become less a factor and intelligence can shine through.
I learned this while teaching Ryan the game of chess. He was only six years old, and I thought he was making remarkable progress but I remained smug as I exposed pieces for him to take. This strategy backfired, however, when I heard from my wife that Ryan was bragging to her about beating me all the time.
One night, however, as I was giving him a lesson in humility, I told him that he was checkmated, and I sat back to watch his face as he worked it out, To my amazement his face lit up, and he moved forward saying, "Not yet." He had found away out that I had not seen. 1 sat there and watched his little face beam with pride. I wonder If he recognized the same thing on mine.
LESSON 6
Charity means giving when it hurts
Ryan's seventh birthday was coming up, and he had been pleading with us to buy him a GameBoy. We had  refused on the grounds that it seemed far too addicting to boys his age when there were so many other ways to spend his time, but finally we relented saying that if he saved up the money he could buy it himself. We thought this stipulation might postpone the GameBoy to his eighth or ninth birthday, but instead he launched himself into a variety of money-making enterprises with remarkable resourcefulness and success. When his lemonade stand wasn't working, he loaded the juice into his wagon and went door to door. Folks might not stop when driving by, but Ryan found they seldom said no to a smiling little boy pulling his red wagon. Next, he wrote a twenty page, illustrated autobiography which he announced he would sell to his aunts and uncles for five dollars apiece. Soon, he had accumulated 28 dollars and 50 cents on his way to the one hundred he needed.
That night, we were having dinner with some friends and our parish priest. Unknown to us, Ryan had pocketed five dollars from his savings and he presented it to the priest that evening at dinner with the words, "Please give this to poor people". Now I knew how much he wanted that GameBoy, and seeing him give away part of his savings like that with no possible selfish motive, no desire to look good in front of others, only the desire to help someone, made me tremendously proud of him -- and not a little bit ashamed of myself by comparison.
Less than 24 hours later, Ryan was killed,
LESSON 7
...and the greatest of these is love.
I don’t know anything about God's eternal plan. I am feeling sick and heartbroken. A sense of loss hangs over me like a thick, sodden blanket, cutting off both light and fresh air. Gone from my life is a person whose character l had come to admire, and I am at a loss to understand how l am to go on without his help.
I know that Ryan is in heaven, for there can be no heaven if such as he were not given a home there. In times when I can see any light, any ray of hope, I think about the love that Ryan showed me, and I hope I made my love clear to him. Love is the great force of creation, and nothing of this world endures like the love we still carry for those we can no longer see. I pray that the power of this love will continue to support my family and I. And I look forward to the day when I can again say to my boy, "I love you, Ryan" and see his love returned.
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