I have been driving Ryan’s car to work every morning and I listen to all of his presets except the sports radio stations that take up a whopping 8 of 24 spots!  I’m sure that isn’t surprising to anyone that knows Ryan.  The rest are basically classic rock and jam band stations.  Anyway, it makes me feel like that is the time when Ryan can “talk” to me.

Ryan and I met in 2000 and when you know someone for 16 years, marry them, have some kids, move back and forth across the country a couple of times and go through some fairly traumatic events together, you learn things about one another that no other relationship will ever rival.  I miss Ryan a lot so I constantly look for signs from him and a lot of that comes through music.  I was listening to Elvis’s, Always On My Mind the other day and I thought, “Oh wouldn’t that be something if on my way to work, I heard that song.”  I switched over to Elvis Radio and guess what?  Nope, it wasn’t Always On My Mind it was C.C. Rider which is much more Ryan.  This was the only Elvis song he would sing.  Ever.  This is what I mean by him “talking” to me.

Last night, I was double checking with Kamryn regarding her Halloween costume.  She had said she wanted to be the Grim Reaper and in light of recent events, I thought it may be a little too…oh what’s the word?  Not good.  She has always been a lover of the macabre when it comes to Halloween and she had made this decision before Ryan passed, but I was just hoping she would change her mind.  She is still set on being Father Time so I began my Pinterest search for costume making ideas and each pin I came across was saved with a cringe and a sigh.

Today I got in the car and what song was playing?  (Don’t Fear) The Reaper.  OK, Ryan, I get it.  It made me smile and chuckle a little.  I know some are reading this and saying, “Amy, that’s just a coincidence.” and I would agree.  It is. A coincidence is defined by a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time and I would say this was quite striking.  What I’m saying is, you can call it what you will and I’ll get from it what I need.  I need it to be Ryan telling me to “Calm the fuck down, it’s not a big deal.”

The song also brought up another memory that made me laugh and it wasn’t the memorable Will Ferrell SNL skit.  Ryan ran a half marathon in Des Moines in 2007 and included in the swag bag was a cowbell for the fans to clang as the runners ran by or for your 1 year old to become obsessed with and refuse to put down.  Kamryn loved that cowbell.  One night, shortly after the race, Ryan asked me to please hide it from her because it was constant, clanging cowbell in our house.  I turned to him and said, “It’s from your race.”  Meaning, it’s your fault we have it so you hide it!  He gave me a very puzzled look and replied, “What do you mean?  We’re both white!”  I laughed for a good hour after that and it still makes me giggle.