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Is Self-preservation

Part 2

BOYS BECOME TOYS FOR OTHER BOYS

Mary, is Ryan's older sister.  She was Ryan's best friend and buffer between him and the rest of his siblings.  Ryan was the baby of the family, and I knew his older siblings had always given him a rough time growing up, but I was soon to learn how terrible it had been.  Mary contacted me out of the blue one day in 1995.  I didn't know she even knew my full name or contact information.  I'd spent a little time with Ryan and Mary, before he had to run away to Indianapolis.  After Ryan moved back I think I saw her only once.  

Mary asked me to meet her for lunch, and we set a date.  I couldn't imagine why Mary would be contacting me, and I was nervous.  It took us a long time to work through the chitchat, jump through the proper social hoops, and endure all of the niceties you have to endure when you're about to have a confrontation. And it wasn't even a normal confrontation.  It was a confrontation with someone I knew only through another person, a person who wasn't even in the room with us!  

Finally Mary broke the ice by explaining that Ryan wanted her to contact me.  I relaxed immediately.  She asked me if, after lunch, I would come back with her to Ryan's house so we could speak in private.  I didn't feel threatened, so I agreed.  I followed her to Ryan's house, where she was living.  I wasn't sure how I felt about being there.  My friendship with Ryan had ended in early 1987, very abruptly.  When I followed her in I felt fine, I felt oddly at home.  Our last interaction had been a very pleasant conversation, so it was fine.  

Mary started off, "Lonnie, thank you so much for agreeing to this."  

I said, "Sure Mary, but what is this all about?"  

She chuckled and said, "No beating around the bush with you, huh?"  "Alright then," she said with a huge sigh, as though she'd just dropped a heavy sack off her back.  "You were the best friend Ryan has ever had," she said, drawing her closed lips tight between her teeth so there was only a line where her lips had been.  She was struggling emotionally.  After a long pause, her eyes glistening, she said, "I think you might even have been the love of his life."

"HA HA!" It was a visceral guffa, born of bitter disbelief.  "He sure had a terrible way of showing love!"  I asked, "Did he tell you I was the love of his life!?"  My voice was raised, by hurt.  In 1987 I had thought Ryan might have had strong feelings for me, but then he simply cut me off, refused to ever have anything to do with me.  

"Lonnie," she said, "Ryan, got a lot of wounds beginning when he was a very little guy."  "The reason I invited you is so I could explain why Ryan treated you the way he did."

"I REALLY WAS HIS FRIEND, MARY!"  I was shouting, I don't know why I was shouting.  Mary walked over to me and clasped my lower arm in her hand, "I know Lonnie, you were a great friend to Ryan."

"Ryan, wasn't a friend to me Mary," I said softly, desperately trying to put the brakes on my tear ducts.  "You can say whatever you want, but Ryan didn't love me, I don't believe he even could love me."  Mary looked me straight in the eyes, and simply nodded her head, "yes."   Mary then said, "You know the old saying, 'Boys will be boys!'" I'd heard that old saying so many times from Ryan, I was stunned when Mary said it.   

Mary said, "May I tell you why Ryan couldn't show you the love I believe he really felt for you?"  She continued, "May I explain to you how I know Ryan truly loved you?"  I couldn't stop the tears flooding my eyes, or my face from contorting into a mask of pain.  All I could do was nod, "yes."

"Lonnie, before he died, Ryan told me what happened to him, and I'm pretty sure it's why he was gay."  (In those days it was still okay to believe that trauma suffered in childhood greatly influenced if not out and out caused sexual deviancy).  "Please, Lonnie, may I tell you Ryan's story, and then make whatever judgment you want to make," she begged?  

I sat down on Ryan's couch, and said softly, "Okay, Mary, I'm listening."  

Mary started with, "When I quoted the old saying, 'boys will be boys,' just now, you looked like I'd slapped you."  She gave a little smile and continued, "He got it from our mother, that's what she used to say when my brothers did something stupid."  She looked down at her hands in her lap, what was coming next was going to be incredibly hard for her to say.  She kept her head down, swallowed hard, and plowed ahead.

"After Ryan told me about what ruined his entire life, I hated that old saying, mom always used," she gritted out.  "And after that, I also hated my mother!"  Now Mary was crying.  I reached across and squeezed her folded hands, to show support.  She started talking through the tears, telling one of the hardest stories I've ever heard.  Once she started she didn't stop.

She pushed her words through the emotions shutting down her throat, "Ryan was four or five, at the time.  It was a Saturday morning, and Ryan was in the room our two oldest brothers shared.  Our next to older brother was out of the house, but our oldest brother was in the room with Ryan.  At that time our oldest brother would have been 20 or 21 years old, 15 to 16 years older than Ryan.  When our mom walked into the room, returning something one of the boys left out, they were both sitting naked on our older brother's bed.  As soon as our oldest brother heard the door opening he'd stopped what he was doing to Ryan...he was sexually molesting Ryan...When mom saw them she stopped, and Ryan said, "'She looked right in my eyes,"' and then she turned around, walked out the door, saying, as she closed it behind her, "Boys will be boys."  

His own mother had abandoned a baby, her baby, to the hands of the adult man molesting him!  

The most important person in the world, one of the people who should have loved him, saved him, protected him, cried with and for him, cared for his wounds, and walked with him away from abuse toward wholeness again, absolutely abandoned him to the hands of his abuser!  Ryan's soul, created to bear the image and likeness of God was twisted into a form that looked nothing like a human form, let alone that of God.  For Ryan the world became a dark, harsh, unloving, horrible place.  For the rest of his life Ryan believed he was worthless, useless, unlovable.  Ryan couldn't give love to anyone because he couldn't believe love existed for him.  Love may have existed for other people, but the one person in all the world, who is the first representation of God's love in his life was utterly indifferent toward him.  

Ryan's mother may just as well have bound his body up with heavy chains, locked him in a cage, and then dropped him down a deep dark pit; abandoned for life.  She took all hope away from a little child when she closed that door, and her words became the epithet spoken after every relationship he tried to build fell to pieces.  

I came to Christ in June of 1990, and by this time I had some understanding of what love is.  I could only think of one thing, "Ryan, just needed someone to save him.  Jesus had saved me, and Jesus could have saved Ryan!"

I wept bitterly and unashamedly and Mary joined me.

  

More to come in Part 3

Unfortunately, Ryan died sometime in October 1994, from complications due to AIDS.  No one ever reached out to him, no one ever loved him to salvation, or even tried.  I have no doubt, had Mary known Ryan's story, before he got too sick, she'd have tried.  If I had known Ryan's story a few months before his death, when I last saw him, I'd have tried.  

Thank you for reading!  Thank you those who are praying!

I hope you will stay with me.  The first two parts of this are just setting the stage for what I want to say about my friend "Carl."