If love could have kept him here, the beat of his heart would have never faltered. If a mother’s arms could have held on tightly enough, he never would have walked out that door on that last night. Super Bowl Sunday 2021—it should have been just another night, just another memory tucked away among so many. But now, it is the night. The last one. And if time had been honest, if it had warned of what was coming, he would never have been let go.

"I love you. I’m sorry for every mistake I made as a mom."

Because love is messy and complicated, full of things said and unsaid, of regrets and apologies, of moments you wish you could rewind. But Ryan—he never saw the world in terms of flaws. He believed in people. He saw the best in them, even when they couldn’t see it in themselves. He never met a stranger, only someone he hadn’t connected with yet. He carried a kind of gentleness that the world does not always deserve.

And then there was the music.

Ryan didn’t learn to play; he just could. It was inside him, stitched into his soul before he even had words to name it. Drums were his passion, the rhythm that made sense in a world that often didn’t. No sheet music, no formal lessons—just him and the beat, an understanding so deep it felt like breathing. Music wasn’t just something he loved; it was who he was.

He once said he wanted to inspire someone with his journey. He did. He does. Even in death, Ryan gave life—five people now walk this earth because of him. He became the hero he wanted to be, even if he never got to see it.

But he should still be here. There should still be the sound of drumsticks tapping, of laughter rolling through a room, of dreams unfolding in time with every beat. Instead, there is silence where there should be music, an absence where there should be him.

Yet love like his does not disappear. It lingers in the echoes, in the songs left unfinished, in the memories of hands drumming on the steering wheel, of laughter that still rings if you listen hard enough. His rhythm plays on, steady and unbroken, carried in the hearts of those who will never stop loving him.

Ryan, you are not gone. You are not forgotten. You are music in its purest form—felt, remembered, forever loved.

"I love you, kiddo." - mom