Happy 21st Birthday, Ryan Boy

We sung  “Happy Birthday” this morning, just as we did for 19 years on this date, and again last year, and now, one more time today.  We started the tradition early in our home.  On each child’s birthday the rest of the family would sneak into the room and wake up the celebrant by singing in our best morning voice, “happy birthday to you.”  Although the recipient of the song would usually groan and mutter “go away and let me sleep”, they did so with a hint of a smile and a blanket of love wrapped around their heart.

And so it has continued, this silly little tradition of ours.  How many times and in how many places?  In our homes in Missouri and Kansas, Illinois and Ohio.  In a hotel room, even by phone on occasion.  Four sleepy voices blending rather inharmoniously to say “I love you” in one more way.

But last year was different.  Oh, the sun dawned on that date, June 8, just as it had for the previous 20.  Just as it had in 1978 when I had been awakened by the first gentle nudges of labor pains.  But it couldn’t be labor, I thought.  I’m 3 weeks early.  My doctor told me just 2 days before that I was on schedule, that it was okay to make this trip to Kansas City three hours from my home, my doctor, my hospital. It was okay for me to stay with my aunt for a few days and attend the conference.  It  couldn’t be labor.  My husband  wasn’t with me.  He’d traveled the three hours back home to work and I didn’t have a way to get in touch with him. I didn’t have a car or a ride to get back to my doctor.  It couldn’t be labor, but it was!  I called the doctor who assured me that because this was my first baby I had plenty of time to get home.  Just come straight to the hospital.  So my stepsister gladly agreed to drive me and off we went feeling the intensity of the process beginning to kick in.  It was labor all right and about 2/3 of the way there, my chauffeur announced “we’re stopping at the next exit.  There’s a hospital there and I know the doctor.”

Twenty-five minutes later I held in my arms our beautiful (to my eyes only, I’m sure) 8 1/2 pound baby boy.  I remember that I couldn’t stop smiling, even when no one was in the room.  I was a mother!  And what a precious child God had given me.  That’s when my song began.  It truly was his BIRTH day, and my heart was bubbling over.

But then there was last year.  As I painfully awoke from my sleep and realized the date, the pains of labor began once more.  Only this time they weren’t laboring to give birth.  They were the pains of laboring to face one more day, one more year without my boy.  The pain of death, of separation, of aloneness, of grief.  The pain that I had to keep on living.  The pain of reality - the reality that today for the first time, I couldn’t get up and gather the four voices and sneak into the room of my sleeping child and sing happy birthday to him.

Had it been 11 months already since I picked up the phone and heard the news, “there’s been an accident”?  Eleven months since I heard the Doctor say “We did all we could, but we’ve lost him”.  Could it have been that long since I traced the outline with my fingers of that scarred, patched and now lifeless foot that had known such trauma most of his life;  since I ran my hands through his thick, curly hair;  since I kissed his handsome face for the last time.

But on that morning last year, as Terry and I lay in our bed weeping and laboring from the pain of it, we decided we would not stop singing.  It was still Ryan’s birthday.  It would always be his birthday on June 8 and as long as we had voices, we would sing the song to him.  So we began. Softly, through our sobs, barely able to get the notes out, but with the love that only parents can give, we sang “Happy Birthday, dear sweet Ryan Boy, Happy Birthday to you.” 

How do they celebrate birthdays in heaven?  I don’t know.  But I wonder if there was a little party that first birthday in heaven for him.  Maybe Grandma Rita made a cake and a few of his friends came, maybe Uncle Leo and his teenaged friends from church who have joined him there, Jake and Valerie and Keith.  Maybe Rich Mullins and King David did a couple songs for him on their guitars.  Then maybe when it was time to light the candles and sing to him, maybe Jesus said, “Wait.  I have something special for you. Listen closely.  You’ll know this song.” And maybe, just maybe, God allowed my boy to tune his ear to earth for a moment and he heard our frail, broken, loving voices sing, “Happy Birthday, dear Ryan, Happy birthday to you.”

Probably not, but I’ll keep singing it to him, anyway.  I’ll keep remembering the years we had. I’ll remind myself on his birthday once again of the sovereignty of God, of the gift that Jesus Christ gave to us of eternal life, and of the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit.  I’ll say again with the Psalmist, “you are good and what you do is good,.”  And I’ll resolve anew to join him - soon, I hope-  around the great throne of God for a celebration much bigger than any birthday, when we cast our crowns at the feet of Jesus and raise our voices together singing  “worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise forever and ever.  Amen”

For  now, we are here and he is there.  But until that day when we are together again, we will go on singing, as we have in other years, to our son who God has given us to love and to hold forever in our hearts.  And today we sing, “Happy 21st birthday, dear Ryan.  Happy birthday to you.”

                                                                                                                                Carolyn Lawrence

                                                                                                                                June 8, 1999