REST IN PIECES - A Life Mosaic
I remember Ryan as an early 20 something. He was an old soul then. Had the depth of a person twice his age and the energy of someone half it. I never would have expected that he would only make it to 36. I found out he died last week. I knew he had been battling stage four cancer for the last two and a half years. I reached out when I found out about the cancer, but honestly I hadn’t been in close touch. Staying in touch with ex-boyfriends is not something I do. I have in mind that once you love someone and then lose them space and time become your best friend. Space and time were my way of healing and moving on. With Ryan he was still in my periphery since we came from the same community of faith. He was the kind of man who left everyone better. He was truly a good man, a man of his word, a leader, trusted friend and confidante. In the short time we had dated he showed himself to be an extraordinarily selfless person. For example, all while working a low paying job as a tireless assistant and still paying off student loan debt, he bought a plane ticket and a rented a car to attend my sister’s wedding as my date. Now he was under the age of 25 so its ridiculously more expensive to rent a car, and not only that he flew into another state and time zone right after working. He never complained. On the day of the wedding he drove all of the ladies of our family to the wedding site (including the bride), and when we couldn’t find the place from a spotty signal up in the mountains, he got out of his rented car and ran up to a random strangers house to get directions so we could make it to the outdoor chapel with plenty of time before sundown. In conversations with him, he always found the good in people… and in me, and for that I will always be grateful to him. I found out the news about Ryan’s death just as my son started getting a cold. All through this past week my toddler clung to me like a koala bear, nursing on demand. Every time I nursed my son I thought about Ryan’s widow and their daughter. Although his wife is someone I have never met, she has been on my heart and mind since Ryan died.
Some times people get into our hearts quickly, some are a slow and steady association. Others we find ourselves simply enthralled by the story their life has told. Although my family has lost many people in the last couple of years, none have rocked my husband as greatly as the death of Kobe Bryant. He never met Kobe, but my husband has been a lifetime LA Lakers fan. His appreciation for Kobe deepened as he grew to see all that Kobe was able to do with his life while only being two years his senior. Watching Kobe as a father to his daughters brought yet another level of appreciation once Aaron became a father to our son, Lion. He had a dream of Lion attending Kobe’s Mamba Academy, and being trained by Kobe himself. When Kobe and Gianna’s helicopter went down last year that dream was shattered. “The world was robbed” he repeated over and over again. We went as a family to the memorial at the Staples Center in downtown LA to help Aaron better grieve his loss. I was amazed by the sheer volume of people from all different backgrounds also grieving. Millions of people deeply moved by a man they never met, but revered as if he was deity. Kobe was in the public eye for most of his life. His glories and faults were on display for the world to see and judge. Yet, amidst his very public downfalls, his victories were god-like and his discipline unmatched. His life was one of true greatness, all 41 years of it
When a legend is taken young
It feels too soon, life’s just begun
They leave within them much we’ll never know.
When a person who has lived a life
Within the time it takes others twice
Twice as long yet still leave half to show.
You wonder why God takes them then
Why not just wait another ten
or twenty thirty forty years so they
Can live to see their life unfold
Enjoy their riches and grow old
Maybe it’s because they’ll have a say
Do Legends sit at Gods right hand?
Because they seem to understand
The next ones who’ll be set apart at birth?
This one will be great! “You’ll see”
Why God asks... “they remind me of me”
So mamba mentality will show it’s worth.
Within a heart that needed to
Be the legend God made new
Who’ll lean on giants shoulders to get strong.
Maybe it will be the young
Left behind when things are done
Since one of the sibling’s now is gone.
Maybe... we’ll just have to see
Maybe the legend lives in you & me
Maybe we have all got greatness wrong.
Maybe it was lived to show
That we often live below
Our potential before singing our swan song.
Most of us don’t live to see
Our own documentary
Or have our sculpture put up in the square
Most of us will just remain
As another carrying on a surname
And only our family will know we’re not there.
But heroes live forevermore
They live and die and are still adored
They go beyond what most of us could do.
Inspiring us to push beyond
The levels that we last lived on
When we realize even heroes are human too.
But with the mamba mentality
each of us can be set free
To grow with everyday that we’ve been given.
To know that better is hard work done
Sweat and grind and adrenaline
To love the life you have and keep on livin.
When I think of a life. To me, its like a Mosaic. Time is given to each of us… but not to each of us the same. When we look at celebrities it’s easy to feel like our lives don’t measure up. I remember seeing a T-shirt on a random stranger that read “You have the same amount of hours in the day as Beyonce.” I laughed and moved on, but that stupid saying haunted me. It was a measuring rod that I could never live up to.
Beyonce is running the world right now, what’s your excuse slacker? The thought has run through my mind while sitting on the toilet, as if I could actually do something about it in that moment. What I don’t consider amidst my potty moment of self shaming is the team of people that are behind every celebrity. The publicists, mentors, coaches, teammates, assistants, stylists, makeup artists, therapists, life coaches, choreographers, trainers, agents, managers, manager’s assistants, directors, assistant directors, runners, food runners, craft services, nannies, personal chefs, cleaners, the list goes on and on. And this list makes me realize, it’s not about how many hours YOU or I have in a day, it’s how many hours in a day that other people are working to help us better tell our stories.
When we zoom out on the life of Kobe Bryant we see an extraordinary narrative perfectly crafted. If we tried to zoom out from our lives right now there would be a lot of pieces of a narrative. It would be very difficult for a stranger to navigate that narrative, and see our life mosaic for what it is. Very few life mosaics share a story perfectly curated by a team. Most lives are a series of broken pieces that only those close enough can put together, and even then they can’t know the whole story. Comparing our life Mosaic to another person whose sole responsibility was to focus on one area of their life (while the rest of their team took care of everything else) is not a fair comparison.
If I want to see my life’s mosaic charted out like a celebrity, then I agree to allow other people to come in and make decisions for me and work on the other parts of my life Mosaic that I can’t attend to. When a person enlists teams of people to work in those different parts of their life, their mosaics get finished a lot faster and end up being considerably grander and clearer. People know what they are looking at. a Kobe, a Michael, an Ella, a Duke, a Marilyn, an Elvis, a Babe. No one gets to that kind of Mosaic without a team working on their life Mosaic with them.
In stark comparison when you have a person trying to make a mosaic of their life on their own, it just looks like a nice dinner plate that was broken and random pieces of mirror and glass got placed in the spots where the dinner plate once was complete. Sometimes parts of our lives are so broken down that there isn’t anything left of what we started with. Our bodies remember some sort of physical presence of a dinner plate, but since we don’t see it with her eyes we don’t remember what it looked like. Those smashed dinner plates are suppressed memories that the body can still be triggered by but the mind no longer remembers. Those broken down plates look like dust in our life Mosaic. Because it isn’t visible in our Mosaic by others in some ways it appears that it never happened. That is, until someone who knew about it zooms into the dust and tells the story of its origin, basically adding it to the mosaic, posthumously. I think of Marilyn Monroe’s story. A lot of her life tragedies came into view long after she died. Maybe if they had been brought to view earlier, more people would have understood why this incredible talent would end up with such a tragic end at the same age that my friend Ryan died, 36.
Sometimes we look up to those legends, forgetting or blissfully unaware of the many sacrifices they made to get that kind of team behind them to help them build their life Mosaic. But, then there’s people like Ryan… who spent his life building up other people’s life’s mosaics. He would raise funds every year for Multiple Sclerosis through biking, often recruiting his friends to join him for the cause and the exercise. He was always considering others and taking time to celebrate, help, support and uplift them. His mosaic looked nothing like Marilyn Monroe’s or Kobe’s. Yet upon close investigation it is apparent to see pieces of Ryan in so many other people’s Mosaics. Not just photos of Ryan’s Mosaic, actual pieces of himself that he gave as a gift, pointing to his Creator as the source of his generosity. He had no desire to have a grand mosaic for himself, all he wanted was to experience whatever God had made him for. His Mosaic showed him to be a restorer of hearts and a connector of people. Ryan’s death shows me that success isn’t about recruiting a team to my cause, or taking the right amount of pictures of my life mosaic along the way, it’s about what I decide to give away and what I decide to keep. Pieces of Ryan’s life Mosaic are all over his community and because of him choosing that, others Mosaics are more complete. Anyone who knew him can attest to this truth.
A single seed can grow
to be a mighty flourishing tree
Or find a way to feed
Its neighbors interconnectively
By pumping out its nutrients
to others near and far
Finding ways to help them grow
No matter where they are
For trees grow in a network
They give and take or pass
A working brain under the ground
Sharing resources quite fast.
So if you see a tree that withers
Maybe it just gave
So much of itself
Because it wanted more to save
The whole of the great forrest
So it gave of all it had
That seed went back into the ground
While never getting mad.
“It wasn’t my intention
To be big and full and green
I just wanted to be a part
Even if it made me lean.
I just wanted to make sure
That the others had a chance
I just wanted to help them rise up
Rise so they could dance.
So although I’ve been taken
by the elements to die
At least I gave out all I could
I gave out all my life”.
To the world Ryan was just another scattered mosaic… but to those who hold pieces of him, we know a story so much deeper. It’s impossible for everyone to gather those pieces that Ryan gave from his life mosaic, but those parts that he gave will always be pointing to a greater Mosaic. Rest In Peace Ryan as you Rest In Piece.
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**One last thing, if you’re inspired by the story of Ryan’s life and want to give to Ryan’s widow and baby daughter, you can here: . This fund has been setup to help fray the cost of his medical bills, grief counseling as well as any other support they may need through this very difficult time. - https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-ryans-fight-against-cancer
**On another note, I just watched this video that his faith community put together of Ryan & Ashlee’s story. It’s really powerful.
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NOW I FOUND MY VOICE is a devotional and lifestyle poetry newsletter that I write and share on a weekly basis. I am a songwriter and mother of a tiny human being that I cuddle with more than ever these days. My hope is that in sharing my journey and the journey of others in poetry and rhyme that you too will find a place that encourages you to “Find YOUR voice” and know “There’s nothing wrong with you”
-Adjoa
“Now I found my voice, and they can’t silence me
Now I found my voice, I don’t need the world to see
that I found my voice, oh now I finally am free
cause I found my voice, and there’s nothing wrong with me.” - Adjoa