I am going to take a break from writing my blogpost every week. We’ve been at it for more than 4 years!
Can you believe it? Me neither.
Like most every college student, Tyler is home from Auburn and our family is all together here in Alexander City, Alabama. Every chair is filled with remarkable young men, and a couple of ol’ schoolers.
Our blessings outweigh any of our own fears because we know that God has the whole world in his hands.
My singular priority during these uncertain days is my family. Talk about limitless family time!
I will return when everything is clear.
In the meantime, we, at ryanshines.com, will continue to abide with you in unbreakable faith, hope and love.
(This is the speech I’m giving tonight at our first annual Gala. It’s the next best thing to being there.)
It’s best to begin with the children–our burn survivors. I hope you have had some time to see and engage our burn children.
They are our galaxy of bright stars.
Have you heard their stories? Many of our burn-kids had never told their story before, to anyone. Some of the stories seemed impossible to be built into words. But we knew the words were there and by listening attentively in a safe harbor of non-judgmental love, the stories began to surface at an event that we call “Catching Courage.”
Their courage was tangible though it’s hard to speak when your spirit has been broken.
Our family has a story and it was very hard to tell even to ourselves at home.
Here’s our story.
It was a typical family Sat. afternoon going from a swimming meet to a soccer match.
We were on the expressway when our tire detreaded and the car started flipping 3/4 times.
There were 4 of us in the car–Ryan (7), Tyler (2), Ron and me.
The car burst into flames. Ryan and I caught fire first. And then it spread thru the car.
We were all burning. Ron was able to reach Tyler and pull him out of the fire. But Ryan was stuck in his seat belt and there was no way to pull him free before the fire took him.
Ron, Tyler and I were flown 600 miles away and a quarter of our bodies were burned.
Even though we know we’ll never get over this, we’re still here and our family is getting stronger at the broken places.
15 years after Ryan died, we saw it was the right time to build our foundation–Ryan Shines–in honor of our son.
Ryan
One purpose of our foundation is to ensure that no burn child is left behind.
We have created a safe place where burn survivors can heal.
It’s a place where we don’t run ahead of them demanding they keep up with us.
We communicate face to face on the same level.
And when we hear them begin to talk about their day from hell, when the world reversed its rotation, we are there with them.
And not only us, but the firefighters were in the center of everything.
There are few men and women who wake up every morning to an unscripted day; a day that could be their last.
Firefighters are born, they’re not made. Their kind of courage and two scoops of craziness is deep in their DNA.
They run toward death while everyone else runs away. They have the gift of not thinking about themselves first.
Compassion is at the heart of their work.
And compassion is at the heart of our work with them. When I first opened my eyes to it, I had no idea that Alabama is 2nd in the nation in suicide over work-related death.
You understand I’m talking about our firefighters.
It breaks my heart.
So many mothers losing their sons and daughters fighting every day like our family did to make sense of it. But, you know, it doesn’t make sense.
Now. Imagine these 2 groups–our pediatric burn children and firefighters–spending a weekend or week together. Without saying a word, they recognize that they are standing on common ground. It creates a whole ‘new normal’ for them.
The bond that began the day of the fire, continues even thru tonite.
It happens at all of our Catching Courage events.
And the bond between them is indestructible.
One thing I’ve learned over these years is that when something awful happens,
“Why?” is almost always the wrong question.
When the roof caves in or a trap door springs, the only question worth asking is “Where do we go from here?”
And however we may answer that question, part of the answer will always be “together.”
It’s a strange moment in the Christmas jingle when they sit by the fire in winter and dream of facing the future without fear.
We sit together this week, basking in the soft glow of candlelight, our hearts warmed by old, old stories and familiar faces.
It’s easy to think that the Christmas Season is mostly about the size and temperature of the stable, the wisdom of the three kings, about Mary’s hope, the innkeeper’s hospitality, the songs of angels, and the birth of the child.
The main characters of the Story wrestle with a lot of fear, even terror.
It’s true about every one of us.
We read about Mary’s anxiety, Joseph’s fear of marriage, the shepherds’ fright over the angel-choir, King Herod’s anger, the wise men’s terror of King Herod’s wrath.
Every scene in the Story moves between fascination and fear, between terror and wonder.
There is no emotion in this Story that we haven’t felt.
The question posed to each character, and to each of us is this: “will we, at this crucial moment in our lives, be frozen in our fear, or lured on by the “Wonder of the star?”
Dawn, Lovely & Kaleigh
We at RyanShines are committed to riding the emotional roller-coaster with our dear burn survivors and firefighters.
We stand by our purpose that “no burn child will be left behind and no Firefighter is forgotten.”
Happy Holidays to everyone, from Ron, Dawn, Tyler, Trenton, Colton & (angel Ryan) Hirn
As I look back over the past year, I am thankful for the joy that has unexpectedly found me in growing RyanShines (our pediatric burn survivors and firefighters foundation).
Catching Courage Salt 2019
It was like a bounty of unlooked-for treasures.
I like to call it “A Year of Heroes with a Thousand Faces!”
Montgomery Fire Dptmt & Ryan Shines
What’s made the year different for me is that I have found a way through the sizable barrier separating me and firefighters.
I mean, who understands firefighters except firefighters?
Some favorite firefighters at RSA tower stair climb
But that was not what I was trying to do.
I was working hard to build “trust” between us so that RyanShines could make a positive difference in their lives.
This was my hope, and I’m seeing it grow at little and large fire stations.
I am thankful for their generous open-heartedness, and their willingness to live in a world of death and life to rescue others.
I am thankful that every day and night they risk their lives for strangers.
Bottom line…I am Thankful.
I am thankful for our pediatric burn survivors.
Brantson, Cory and James Catching Courage Salt ’19
I am thankful for the bond that we have forged.
Lovely, Kaleigh and me
I am inspired by their raw courage, the way they carry themselves, and the way they let us carry them.
Finally, I am thankful for you, dear readers, for the ways that you encourage us and keep us warm in your prayers.
Lovely @catchingcourage salt ’19
Thank you for keeping us focused on our mission that “no pediatric burn survivor be left behind and no firefighter be forgotten.”
Joe Kinan was the most severely injured of the crowd who were burned in the fire at “The Station” nightclub in West Warwick, RI, on Feb. 20, 2003.
Joe Kinan
The fire killed 100 people and injured more than 200.
For the past 16 years, Joe has been on a rugged journey of recovery, having had 148 surgeries.
Joe not only had to fight his way back from injuries that should have killed him, but he also developed a paralyzing fear of fire.
“I try to look at it and face up to it but it’s tough,” he told PEOPLE magazine: “Even if it’s just a candle with a one-inch flame, it’s like the size of a tree to me.”
Before the fire, Joe worked as much as possible—two or three jobs at a time.
He was also an amateur bodybuilder, spending hours working out and loving the “mental clarity that it brought.”
When the fire started, he immediately tried to get himself and his friend out the door.
She did not survive.
“I kept thinking about my daughter. I didn’t want her to not have a dad.”
Joe’s fitness as a bodybuilder helped him survive the fire, but his deeper source of strength came from his mental fitness.
At the 2007 World Burn Congress in Vancouver, Canada, Joe met Carrie Pratt, a fellow burn survivor, and they became close friends.
Joe & Carrie Kinan
Three years later, Joe and Carrie began dating and eventually married in 2017.
In recent years, Joe received a hand transplant.
After lengthy rehab, he can now use a chef’s knife again (getting back to his love of cooking) and make his own cup of coffee in the morning.
Kinan’s & me
Last summer Joe had several rejection episodes that caused him to lose all his fingernails and develop neuropathy in his hand.
Joe has learned a lot about the process of healing on his journey to recovery.
“Something I keep saying to myself is ‘’You end up a patient—now you have tobepatient.”
Joe has started a real estate company flipping houses and likes to stay as physically fit as possible.
One more thing.
Another miracle.
A baby girl.
Who is almost 6!
dawn
(I acknowledge my debt to the “Phoenix Society’s World Burn Congress” in the writing of this blog)
BTW-(If this is something that you would like to support, please visit us at www.ryanshines.com or follow us on FB and IG @dawnraymondhirn)
A 12-year-old middle school boy, Fernando Castro, was killed as a fire ripped through his family’s home.
Nano
To everyone who knew him, he was affectionately known as “Nano.”
The night of the fire, Nano and his young siblings – three-year-old half-sister Esmeralda (“Esme”) and five-year-old half-brother Luis (Junior)– were home with a babysitter and her boyfriend, when a fire sparked inside their home.
The children’s mother, Juana Vasquez, was away driving her daughter back to college after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
The babysitter told the police that one of the children moved a ‘space heater’ into their bedroom.
She thought that was how the fire started.
The fast-moving flames engulfed everyone inside.
The thick, black smoke hindered the Firefighters, but they worked through it and found Nano’s body inside the burned-out home.
Esme and Junior survived but suffered critical injuries that left them both hospitalized, with Esme suffering from burns over 40 percent of her body, while Junior has burns on over 70 percent of his body.
Junior
Esme
They were burned so badly that they had to be placed in medically induced comas.
Doctors have told the family that each child would need more than 80 operations between now and the age of 18 to fully recover from their severe injuries.
Nano’s mourning mother, Juana, remembered how he would always turn to give her a big “thumbs up” every morning before getting on the school bus.
She clings to this image of her boy who seems to be saying here, with his thumbs up, “I’m OK, Mom, everything’s OK.”
I remember meeting Esme and Junior along with their aunts, at the Phoenix World Burn Conference, who are taking care of them now.
JR, Esme, aunts and me
Let me tell you what’s really amazing that has come out of this tragedy.
It is the power of love in a larger family.
These 2 aunts are bringing deep emotional and physical healing to their niece and nephew. (I remember the nights after Ryan died when I had my two sisters, Dianne and Darby, and my parents surrounding us with their love).
Now, I look at this photograph and see that the same thing has happened for this little family.
They are encircled by a love that will never let them go.
There’s a message for all of us in this.
In an age where we are losing a sense of the ‘nuclear family,’ it’s sad, isn’t it, that it often takes a tragedy to shatter the walls we’ve put between us and open our eyes to the best gift God has given us.
The Gift of Family.
dawn
BTW-(If this is something that you would like to support, please visit us at www.ryanshines.com or follow us on FB and IG @dawnraymondhirn)
I’m a mom who lost her oldest son in a car fire when he was 7-years-old.
Ryan ’94
One of the things I think back on is that I never wanted children in the first place.
I guess I could tell you that if we’d never had Ryan, we would never have lost Ryan.
I’ve thought plenty about that over the years.
Does it sound crazy to you?
Every time I think that way I always judge myself as a ‘failure-Mom.’
But I’m changing.
That dark thought has basically disappeared deep into my psychic basement.
Ryan at 4
Today is Ryan’s birthday.
He’d be 25.
He’d be out of college, and working somewhere in his own business, being his own boss.
Our little boy was very social from the start; he just naturally loved people.
Ryan, baby Tyler & Ron
And he cared about them, almost to a fault.
Here’s what I think: If Ryan could’ve had his dream job, it would have only one focus: out of the wealth he created he would be “Generous’’ professionally.
He would work so he could give away money to help others.
Of course, I’ve got a Ryan story for you.
It’s our lucky day! A gift to you from Ryan on his birthday today, October 3rd.
(Story) Eighteen years ago…in fact, it was on our last night ever with Ryan, he was killed the next afternoon.
We went to a dinner party at a friend’s house that Friday night.
We came in and looked to see who all was there.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ryan walking toward our priest. They talked for a second and Ryan handed something to the priest.
I later found out it was a five-dollar bill.
Ryan said to Father Jerry: “Give this to the poor children.”
I remembered our previous conversation in the car on the way over that night.
Ryan had told us he was still several dollars short of getting his Gameboy he’d been saving for.
That’s where the five dollars came from.
I’m crying as I write this.
In the past eighteen years, I believe with my whole heart that Ryan was created especially for me, and I was created for him, even if we’d only had a year together.
But we had seven! Did you hear what I said? We had SEVEN YEARS TOGETHER!
The mother in this story is me. Our little family was boxed-in by a fire in our car.
We skidded across the access road off the Interstate and rolled the car three times.
Three of us survived. My seven-year-old son, Ryan, was burned alive, to death.
I realized last night that I haven’t told you very much about our baby boy, Tyler, who was freed from the flames along with Ron, and me. (We three were burned over 25% of our bodies).
This was–no-contest–the worst experience of my life.
Everything in me died on a slab that day, but my breathing wouldn’t quit.
I only wanted one thing . . . to be with my Ry-Ry immediately.
About Tyler.
My 2-year-old gave me the best Gifts of my life. (He’s a sophomore at Auburn now).
He gave his gift every morning of every month of every year after “the accident.”
He saw me beyond his own pain. He saw beneath my scars.
He saw the heart of a mother who didn’t deserve to be called “mother” anymore.
For him, nothing had changed.
We were still Team Tyler!
And every morning he pushed my bedroom door open, he saw the one thing he needed most. Mommy-Me! I was all he needed.
I was haunted by my consummate failure at the ‘’scene,’’ Tyler wasn’t.
I was more than my scars.
That’s what he taught me again and again, and he hardly knew how to talk.
Forget words he knew me ‘by heart.’
I was all-mother, not his ‘scarred’ mother.
I was the mother who knew just what he needed, and when.
He showed me I still had the Goods.
He never once bailed on me while I was bailing on myself every day.
How can a 2-year-old do that?
I think about the ”Little Prince” and what he said, “
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Tyler saw me rightly and I grew into his vision of me.
He took me every day by the hand into the kitchen for breakfast.
Tyler
He led me to the window to show me, in a loving way, that Life goes on.
It didn’t matter to him if I was ready to see it or not. God only knows how saw my strength. God only knows how he knew me.
Tyler will always be God’s best Gift to me!
me and tyler
dawn
BTW-(If this is something that you would like to support, please visit us at www.ryanshines.com or follow us on FB and IG @dawnraymondhirn)
Dawn Raymond Hirn 