Today was the memorial service for my cousin, Ryan Barringer. He was 30 years old and died peacefully in his sleep after a 10 year struggle with physical disability following a terrible accident. I learned so much about him today. What I remember from our childhood is Ryan and his brothers calling me a magpie everytime I opened my mouth! LOL. It used to make me sooo mad! He had these huge brown eyes and the longest eyelashes. He was a beautiful person, inside and out. Today, I learned that Ryan had been a loving and devoted father to his 3 yr old son Dacota and had quit drinking after Dacota was born. They told a story that when the baby saw his daddy after he'd passed, he first said, "shhh, my daddy is sleeping". Then he blew him a kiss and waved goodbye. How sad that this baby will have few memories of the daddy that loved him so much.
My youngest son, Braden, sobbed for Ryan today even though he barley remembers him. He's such a beautiful boy. After the service, Braden signed the guestbook. I signed right after him, and noticed that in the Comment blank next to his name, he simply wrote, "have a great time". How precious are these words? My children restore my faith in a broken world everyday in some small way or another. What better to say to someone who has gone to spend eternity in a better place than "have a great time"? Wow. Sometimes I'm just speechless. . . .
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