As posted on CarePages, a HUP Web site where patients' families can post messages and updates.
First, on behalf of myself, Beverly, Emily, and Colin, we want to thank everyone here today and the hundreds of our friends, Ryan's friends, and our family who have focused their thoughts and prayers towards Ryan and our family over the last week. They have been most greatly appreciated.
Needless to say, the last seven days have been beyond what we will ever be able to rationalize and we recognize the difficult journey of loss and healing that lies ahead. But, as I stand here today I want to share that we consider ourselves the luckiest and most grateful parents and family in the world. By having Ryan in our lives we were blessed with most wonderful, brilliant, funny, compassionate, happy and loving son, brother, and friend who has ever graced this planet.
We are thankful to Ryan for the great gifts he shared. Many of you know him from the different Ryan's you experienced. A diving coach at the Rose Valley Pool. A member of the Strath Haven Band who determined that there was way more fun and upside with hanging with the girls as a Silk and going on their bus and to their pool parties compared to continuing to march with his trombone with the other guys in their snappy band uniforms. As a member of the high school swim team as a diver who shared both his assistance and sense of humor while on the pool deck. As a member of our community who everyone so much enjoyed talking and spending time with just because of the enjoyable, funny, brilliant and happy guy he was.
Others of you may know him as a young many who had great passion and ability with computers, particularly to create animation for video games and movies. Future versions of World of Warcraft or the next Pixar release will not be what they might have been had Ryan been there to lend his skills and creative ideas. He had a most unique ability to share his caring, inspiration, fun and positive zeal for life with so many people.
As a family, we had the greatest of fortune to know him as all these things and many more. While of course, we planned to enjoy all these amazing gifts for years to come, the years we did have with Ryan were many multiples of normal time as he lived and shared his life to the fullest. Thank you Ryan. You know that no family or parents have ever been more proud and happy to have you as part of every minute of our lives, past and future.
Over the last week, the heartfelt and sincere messages sent to our family from people who knew Ryan have been greatly appreciated. Just a minor sample of these notes include:
Ryan was a gift of happiness in all of our lives. He made the world a brighter, better spot.
Ryan was an amazing friend and was always there when I needed him. He accepted me for who I was and always knew how to make me smile.
Ryan was a great friend and lived each day to the fullest, I always admired that he knew what he wanted to do and actually went out and did it, never one to settle for boredom or convention.
He changed my life.
As a family, we had many great experiences together to share special times with Ryan that we will never forget. Living in England. Traveling to Ireland, Amsterdam, Greece, Japan, the Galapagos Islands, ski trips to Colorado and the Bahamas where our family plan to go again after Christmas. We also had amazing trips to National Parks including the Grand Tetons, which along with Rose Valley, was Ryan's favorite place to be. Ryan, we thank you for all those wonderful times together we will forever cherish.
Of course, it is some of the more specific and simple things that are most clearly in our memories that will help carry Ryan with us forever. The hours of playing harts together as a family and the laughter and jokes that went along with those card games and the witty banter that so frequented meals at our dining room table. The times in the Tetons when Ryan would pick a spot on a climb and declare a race to a certain point and proceed to beat us all by a long shot but then the time we would spend there together as a family soaking in the phenomenal views. The numerous times, including the Friday after Thanksgiving just 2 weeks ago, we spent walking the dogs together in the woods Ryan loved near our house in Rose Valley. Ryan, Thank you so much.
While of course the worst 6 days of our lives, Ryan, we thank you for the gift you gave us by remaining alive during that time so we could speak with you and share our prayers, love and thoughts with you. In addition to that valuable time we got to spend with him, during those days we learned directly from a group of nurses at Penn how they saw him from the HUP windows skillfully climbing over, up and around the different parts of the dorm roof last Saturday afternoon while they called for help to protect him from slipping and falling. We learned from his close friends at Penn who came to visit him at the hospital who had been with him just before the tragic accident how he was his typical happy and fun self and that how climbing on the roof was something he did with his friends on a number of occasions because it was something he liked doing. While of course we would do anything to roll back the clock, knowing that his last time here on earth he was happy and doing something he enjoyed doing, however foolish, gives us important understanding as we go forward in our healing. Ryan, we thank you for giving us the last time we had together.
Of course, no words can describe the devastation our family feels from losing the most wonderful, loving, fun and happy person Ryan was. He knew how much we loved him and we know how much he loved us. We naturally looked forward to many more wonderful and loving times together. But Ryan, we thank you so, so much for being the most wonderful and amazing son, brother, and friend that you are. We know we are the luckiest and most fortunate family ever because we got to share the time we had together so fully, how you are a part of us and know that you will be with us always. We know you will help us all in the future as you always did in the past. Thank you Ryan.
