From the mouths of babes

Some blogs will be all about the feelings. Some will be about stories and memories of Ryan. At this moment, Ryan floods my mind constantly. He is very near. So many thoughts about him. It gets me very emotional, more so than before. Not sure if I am transitioning into another cycle of grief. In my writing, I feel compelled to also share some of Ryan’s personality and character of who he was.

There are many people who knew Ryan solely from my social media posts or maybe met him once or twice. Some knew him very well. If you had an interaction with him, you are probably smiling right now recalling it. Ryan had a polite, fun, and comedic demeanour. He would do fantastic English and Scottish accents that would put us in stitches. He loved catch phrases from movies or shows that he would repeat until you were sick of them and he had some pretty funny one liners too. My favourite that he came up with was, ‘Dude - let’s have dude off’. Calling everyone dude. He had nicknames for people too. Mine was Big Mama muscles. Often blurted out in fits of giggles. His silliness was his comedy. He was also accustomed to be called lots of nicknames himself. We had all kinds. George. Stanley. Ry Ry. Ryanbear to name just a few.

Ryan was honest and social. Sometimes his frankness would just come out, even if it hurt your feelings. Never malicious, he just said what ever came to mind. He was also very determined. He had his own style, very particular preferences and he wasn’t afraid to express them. Some times this made it hard for Ryan to have a big social circle. Other times, he would go and explore for friends, making many at our trailer through independent interactions. Same in our neighbourhood, he would declare who his new friends were. He never thought to exercise any caution with other kids, everyone was his friend in some way, no matter their age.

When Ryan was a pre-K, 3 going on 4, he still wasn’t entirely potty trained. It almost stopped us from sending him to Junior kindergarten. He was born so late into the year on top of being premature, it didn’t seem like a bad idea as there was always a little immaturity with Ryan. He would still be 3 for quite sometime in JK. But his daycare insisted he was ready and it would be fine. And it was. 2 weeks before JK started, he was trained. You see, all summer, we were constantly at our trailer outside. We let Ryan roam freely on our site naked so he could get used to going pee as often as he needed. If you were there at that time, you would roll up in your golf cart at our place to our little menace playing in dirt clouds absolutely naked. Ryan had no inhibitions and was so true that stuff like that never bothered him. He even peed on a tree in JK at recess! That didn’t go over well. He was just super comfortable with himself.

One summer weekend when Ryan was 10, we all had plans individually. It involved all of us going in our own directions, except Ryan who would need to be supervised. I asked my Mother in law if she would like Ryan for the weekend. She lives in Oakville and doesn’t see the kids as often. She happily agreed. Ryan was fine with it as going to Granma’s meant an outing, probably a treat purchase and McDonalds. And he’s the youngest of 5 grandsons. He went for 2 nights. When I picked him up on the Sunday evening, he was grumpy, homesick and eager to go home. Granma had bought him a gift of a train conductor hat and as we were packing him up to go home, we couldn’t locate it.

When we got in the car, I asked him how the weekend had gone. He said fine but that he didn’t like what Granma had bought for him, that it was for little kids and that she didn’t know he didn’t like trains anymore? I asked him if he knew where the hat was. Without a flinch, he said ‘I stuffed it behind the dresser in the room I stayed in so she couldn’t find it’. I laughed so hard because he was so frank. Well, Granma found it about 2 weeks later and she knew what he meant by stuffing it back there. ‘Little bugger!’ said Granma. We teased him all the time about it, saying that we were going to buy him another one. What I realized most about that story was that Ryan was developing confidence to be honest and speak his mind.

It was well know that when something peaked Ryan’s interest, he became an expert on it. He liked to watch Mayday. I liked watching it with him. I was so impressed with all the things he knew about flight. Stuff he would look up on his own. He had a short fascination with planes when he was smaller. He fell in love with trains for a long time and then his passion moved to cars. He knew his path later on in life was going to be auto related in some way. When he graduated from Grade 5, the end of year ceremony was to be a talent show. Ryan insisted that he somehow show his talent with cars. But his idea was not really working. I suggested to him we write about all of his classmates and some how compare each of their personalities to all the cars he knew about. It turned into a speech and he was a hit. I have attached it to the blog. Proud Mom moment.

If you ever were in the car with Ryan, you would know that he was very particular about the back seat. He had to sit in the middle so he could see the centre of the road through the windshield. If you were in the back with him, this meant he was very close to you. The entire time, he would have his iPod rolling so he could film trains (when he was smaller) and then later, cars. Ryan would echo the make, model, year, and other specs on a lot of cars. How he learned it all, I do not know. If there were two people in the back seat of the car and him, he would feel no ways to reach across you to get to the window to film something. His favourite car was an Audi R8. I think that's right. And he lived for Forza on X Box.

Ryan started Grade 7 in September online. He lucked out with a great teacher and class. He was really in the groove of things up until he passed away. His teacher and class sent us a 26 page slide show with collages and kind messages of memories of Ryan and to say goodbye. When I reference honesty and individualism, one of the messages that made us laugh was a classmate who chose her memory of Ryan as him being naughty because he would leave his camera on and play on his X box during class! No shame! I had to keep him out in the open in the kitchen as I would catch him in his room goofing off during class. That’s just who Ryan was. Everything in his own time, like potty training, on his own terms and at his own speed.

So many memories to recall, we have thousands of them. They are so very real. His idiosyncrasies. Mannerisms. Habits. Things that make us all unique. They are everywhere.

Honest. Care free. Particular. Creative. That’s Ryan Erik Blance.

When Ryan was into trains- Aidan and Ryan in Washington, DC.

Ryan's grade 5 graduation speech

At the beach at Grandview, he may have peed here by the trees a few times.