The Portal: Portal-ity Thoughts

On the second anniversary of our son’s death, my friend Ronna came by to see us. She shared with me a vision she had of John. It went like this: "I saw the best picture of John. He had a glorious twinkle in his eyes, and he leaned in and said 'Mom, I’m doing so great!' The peace on his face and in his voice are indescribable." As she relayed this vision of John to me, her eyes welled up with tears, but the joy she exuded was palpable. She told me she could still see his face so clearly and she just couldn’t describe it fully – the joy.  This is not the first vision to come from Ronna and her husband David.  I also wrote about David's word regarding our little Davey Sue coming into the world, and he also saw our son being greeted in Heaven by a family friend who lost his life in a private plane crash. At the same time, I received a Facebook message from Allison. She felt led to contact me about a company from South Dakota called Rebekah Sco

Such a great memory - surrounded by two of his favorite girls. As I woke up this morning, complete with all its horrible memories, I had a thought.  When John was about six, we lost him at Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America on New Year's Eve for a brief moment. He and a friend came off of a ride on the opposite side we were expecting, and for those moments, we had no idea where he was. Do you know that feeling? Absolute terror? Adrenaline kicking in, panic overwhelms you and you start frantically searching? Well, his death is similar in feeling, only it’s about a million times worse and it lasts all day every day. You spend the rest of your life managing those horrific thoughts and that incessant feeling of panic. Where is he? Only you can't find him. Anyway, John Ryan would be 26 now - and I thought, why not share 26 ways to remember him or get to know him today.  Feel free to add anything you think he would have loved. We so enjoy hearing about him th