Speaker for the Dead

At the end of July, I had the honor of delivering my brother’s eulogy - I was his Speaker for the Dead (IYKYK).

After some thought (and a few requests), I’ve decided to share it here. In his life, Ryan taught us many lessons. I will share them. For him, for us all. This is his supernova, and I hope it glows far and wide.*

Hi everyone. I first want to say thank you all so much for being here. It’s really heartwarming to see how many lives Ryan touched, and I even know of a few others who couldn’t be here today. We’re grateful to each of you.

If you really knew Ryan, you knew which books he loved. Ones that he re-read so often that their covers were worn and their pages faded. One of his favorite books, one of my favorite books, and one of our father Gary’s favorite books is this one: Ender’s Game.

For those that have not read it, the TLDR of it is that it’s a YA Science Fiction story where earth was previously invaded by an alien race, and because of time, space, and relativity, the world government it training children to fight in the next war when they’re grown up.

So I’m going to read you a piece from the end of this book that’s going to give a bit of context regarding what I’ll be saying next.

“The book that Ender wrote was not long, but in it was all the good and all the evil that the Hive-Queen knew. And he signed it, not with his name, but with a title: 



SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD

On Earth, the book was published quietly, and quietly it was passed from hand to hand, until it was hard to believe that anyone on earth might not have read it. Most who read it found it interesting; some who read it refused to set it aside. They began t live by it as best they could, and when their loved ones died, a believer would arise beside the grave to be the Speaker for the Dead, and say what the dead one would have said, but with full candor, hiding no faults, and pretending no virtues. Those who came to such services sometimes found them painful and disturbing, but there were many who decided that their life was worthwhile enough, despite their errors, that when they died a Speaker should tell the truth for them.

On Earth it remained a religion among many religions. But for those who traveled the great cave of space and lived their lives in the hive-queen’s tunnels and harvested the hive-queen’s fields, it was the only religion. There was no colony without its Speaker for the Dead.”

My name is Brigid, I’m Ryan’s sister, and I stand before you today as his Speaker for the Dead.

Growing up, Ryan was what we called a “sensitive kid”. As an older sister, I remember being kind of surprised by how easy it was to make him cry.  One time he even cried when I beat him at the Star Wars edition of Trivial Pursuit.

A few years ago, Ryan started researching the autism spectrum disorder, recognizing himself in many of the listed characteristics of ASD. He was eventually diagnosed with it, and we suddenly became aware that much of his life had been spent trying to navigate a world he didn’t fully understand.

Regardless of how it came about, this sensitivity led him to develop a deep empathy for others and a special kind of patience. A few years ago, I remember being on the phone with him and apologizing for being such a mean big sister when we were younger.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said “I know you were going through a lot of your own shit growing up.”  Looking back on it now, that compassion and forgiveness is the greatest gift he could have ever given me to prepare me for this new phase of our relationship.

But that was who Ryan was. He was fiercely loyal - sometimes to a fault.  Ryan was the guy you could call at any hour of the day or night if you needed him, and he’d be there. When he committed to something, he stuck to it.  If he made a promise to you, he kept it. Period. Full stop. He sat with many of his friends during the darkest times of their lives. He deeply cared for others, and his connections were of the upmost importance to him. He routinely put everyone else before himself. Even if his heart was broken, his trust betrayed, he always gave someone the benefit of the doubt. The only person he couldn’t offer this grace to was himself.

A lot of this had to do with my dad, who modeled stoic behavior. Always be in control, and quick with your wit should you need to deflect. My dad loved my brother very much, and knew just how damn smart he was. But my dad’s idea of what smart people should do with their lives was a pretty narrow one. “He’s not living up to his potential” dad would say. I think Ryan lived his entire life trying to please him - even after my dad died.

Like my dad, Ryan was often rigid in his viewpoints. “Stubborn” is the nice word for it. He clung to logic and reason, I think partly because that’s how his brain functioned optimally. If you could explain something to him in a way that he understood, he was always so open to changing his viewpoints and ways of thinking or doing things - it just had to make sense first. But one thing you never had to convince him of was the value of another person. He gave everyone a fair shot.

But I also think he leaned heavily into the logic of it all because uncertainty and vulnerability were hard to sit with. If he could not make logical sense of something, he simply could not trust in it. But the thing is, trust is about having a confident relationship with the unknown. And the unknown can be scary. 

There was one area of the unknown that Ryan was very comfortable with, and that was creativity. He loved bringing something new into existence.  He began writing songs as soon as he started learning how to play instruments, and he found great satisfaction in designing and building things from scratch.  Not only that, Ryan was really adept at noticing the good moments while he was still in the middle of it and being grateful for them. He was really talented at a lot of different things - including making people laugh. He was so funny. And he was really down for anything.

His friends and family often heard him say, “Having fun is always better than not having fun.” From skiing, to skating, to camping, to partying, to drinking, to drugs - he tried “fun” in any and all forms he could find.  But it’s very easy to go from “having fun” to numbing discomfort. Ryan wanted to have fun all the time so that he didn’t have to feel all of the difficult feelings that followed him around. But you cannot selectively numb emotion - the only way through it is to feel it.

He was deeply affected by my dad’s suicide eleven years ago. Understandably so, we all were. But I don’t think we’ll ever truly know all that Ryan struggled with. But we know he struggled. Not only did he struggle, he struggled to ask for help, at least about certain things.  Or maybe, he thought he had everything under control. Who’s to say? 

But I think one thing we know for sure is that Ryan was a star. He burned fast and bright. When a large star dies, it turns into a supernova, redistributing its light and stardust across the entire galaxy. It’s legacy, shall we say. 

So what can we learn from the supernova of Ryan’s life?

Ryan taught us the power of kindness and generosity, and how they act as a renewable resource for community. Ryan taught us that we as humans are at our very best when we take care of each other.

We can learn that our physical bodies are both insignificant and also miraculous. We only have one vehicle to carry us through this life, and we should do our best to give it what it needs to function optimally. The fact that we as humans know not only our place in the universe, but also how our bodies function within it is a gift that we shouldn’t take lightly.  We can learn to treat all physical forms, including our own, with care and compassion.

Let Ryan’s life serve as a lesson on the importance of allowing our whole humanity to come through.  We contain a vast spectrum of emotions, and all are meant to be felt. If we try to avoid the negative feelings - if we ignore them and shove them deep down inside ourselves - they will fester and rot, and eventually, they will consume us. Let us learn to share our struggles with those who have earned the right to hear them.  

What else can we learn from Ryan? We can learn how important it is to set - and hold - boundaries, not to manipulate others, but to protect ourselves and our hearts from things that cause us unnecessary pain. We can learn that, when someone shows you who they are through their actions, to believe what they are showing us, and break ties if needed.  This severing can be difficult, but we cannot make space for good things to come in our lives if we continue to cling to that which no longer serves us.

We can also learn to stop and consider how much we should take from another person who always offers themselves freely to others. Just because someone hands you the shirt off their back, doesn’t mean you should always take it.  Self-awareness is a prerequisite for empathy. We cannot truly understand what others are going through if we do not first understand our own inner world, our own feelings and needs. If you take from another, will you also be able to give back when needed?

We can also, of course, learn that life is short, and fun must be had. We can learn to love the every day things, to stop and appreciate them while they are still with you, and to view life with that childlike wonder and presence that truly connects us to all other things.

May we do our best to treat ourselves and everyone we encounter with loving kindness.

May we nourish our bodies, minds, and spirits in productive and generative ways.

May we love fiercely and freely, while also kindly but firmly respecting ourselves in the process.

May we learn from Ryan and continue to live in his honor.

So says his Speaker for the Dead.

*A special thank you to Orson Scott Card, Brene Brown, and Rachel Botsman for inspiration and teachings