Appreciate your chaos

I wasn’t going to write a blog post today.  It’s an inopportune time of day, the witching hour, when my children are about to come home from school.   However, after visiting Ken Diviney’s blog that he has dedicated to his son Ryan Diviney, I had to sit down and write.

I was feeling so tired and dragged myself around all day.  Debate clubs, lacrosse, Boy Scouts, basketball, tutors, and honors classes fill my children’s days.  There are project deadlines, my husband’s job stress and my part-time job to juggle.  Managing my most important role, the supporting foundation for three boys and a husband causes me to sometimes zone out during the day.  Today was one of those days when I mentally shut down.  I spent the day in anticipation of them descending on me like chaotic tornadoes that need a path through the house.  I did nothing productive in order to reserve my sanity and strength.  I felt burned out.

So I surfed the internet and wound up on Ken’s, or rather, Ryan Diviney’s page.  One of his recent posts describes how Ryan was able to bring his eye down, something that hasn’t happened since he was beaten and left in a vegetative state.  My happiness for Ken and for Ryan also left me feeling ashamed and tearful.  I continued to read and came upon another post entitled “Share My Pain…Even Just a Short While.”  Perhaps Ken would tell me that I have nothing to be ashamed of but I felt it all the same.  Today I felt ashamed because I forgot to appreciate the chaos that is my life.  I tried to share your pain Ken but the burden of putting myself in your shoes, even though it was only in my mind, brought me to my knees.

Ken and his wife Sue were good parents for Ryan.  They spent their chaotic years driving him to baseball practice, supporting him in his education, taking him on family vacations and driving home the strong moral values that would help define him as a man.  Ken and Sue both worked full-time, they both had another child, Ryan’s sibling Kari, and they paid their dues.  It was a happy chaos, one that was full of promise and reward.  Ryan was in college and I can tell you from personal experience that having your first child in college is such a wonderful feeling.  It feels like all of that hard work that you have put in as a parent has paid off.

Now their chaos involves trying to care for Ryan and to hold onto hope that one day he will return to them.  It takes a strength and resilience that is far beyond my own.   There is no such thing as doing “nothing productive” for Ken Diviney.  Every day he is faced with the same routine and goal.   He takes care of his son Ryan to the utmost of his ability, at all costs to his own health and his own sanity.  This is the ultimate fight of his life and of Ryan’s life.  He does not question his day….he just gets it done.

He is an example of love and strength in the face of pain and sorrow.

Ryan’s supporters have a saying “We Got this!”  They help to keep Ryan relevant.  So as you go through your own chaotic day I would just ask you to take a second to say a prayer for Ryan and his family.  Stop by Ken’s page and send him some love and support.  If you don’t feel comfortable doing that then I have one more request:

Appreciate your chaos.