We departed with a black-and-white image of our baby on a thin piece of paper curled at the edges. It was too soon to determine the gender, but I remained convinced that we were having a boy because the profile in the image resembled me, so I assumed our baby would be like me in every possible way. He would study hard, get good grades, bat left, throw right, hate the Yankees, and beg to stay up past his bedtime to see the outcome of playoff games. I would soon learn, though, that there are no scripted plans when it comes to parenthood.
In his own way, Ryan was a big influence on other students at Bridger. Foster care, group homes, and schools with residential facilities were hardly bastions of free expression. These kids were conditioned to choose compliance over retribution, so Ryan reciprocated by teaching them to advocate, question, and buck the system at every turn. He had the courage to speak up, not only when he believed he was treated unfairly, but anytime he thought his classmates were treated unjustly.
For me, when it came to the technical aspects of skiing, the nine-year career that led me to ski-touring in Antarctica was without adversity, offering a direct line in pursuing my goals. However, it was never that simple. Like our morning zodiac ride across still water, I was forever mindful of the dangerous chunks of ice in my path. For my entire childhood, I was forced to navigate a field of doctors, teachers, and administrators who felt I was unable to walk the halls of any school without medication and constant supervision. Worse, many times I felt as though I was trapped by the ice floe as I was literally held in place until grown-ups deemed that I was ready to return to society.
A few weeks before, during the long flight home from Chile, I decided that Sally and the rest of the SPED system needed to see a touch of crazy from me because our diplomatic approach using Mary Beth’s color-coded files and tabbed expert reports wasn’t getting us anywhere. We were being played, and I was furious with myself for not seeing it years earlier. The more we acquiesced, the more the system patted us on the head and told us everything would get better. Yet, fueled by Dr. Delgado’s observations, I could finally prove that Ryan was getting worse at Parsons. So, when we walked into the meeting with Sally, I decided that it was time to change our approach and demonstrate my willingness to fight. Fortunately, summoning a dose of rage for her to ingest did not require any stretch of my acting abilities because it accurately represented how I felt about Ryan’s decade-long treatment by the system.
Dad struggled a bit toward the top, but he was much better today. He even seemed to laugh more and have fun on the way up, and when we did finally reach the summit, he asked Kurt to take some pictures of us. I just wanted to ski this magnificent beast, but I could tell Dad wanted time to enjoy the moment. At one point, he even looked at me and told me, “Remember this day.” I know my life will have plenty of adventure, but did he really think I could forget standing over this incredible ocean scene at the bottom of the world? I knew he wanted me to think about all that I overcame to get to this day and, although I did think about my childhood during the climb up, now that we were standing on top, I didn’t want to think about anything aside from how special this place was.
I was alone on a quiet trail leading to the top of Mt. Washington, stopping frequently to rest, when it finally hit me. Although standing still felt good, unless I started moving, I would never reach the top. Yet, when I took even the smallest and slowest possible steps forward, I advanced.
As I forced myself to slide my feet forward and up the steep pathway, my mind raced through the last decade. The magic carpet, Loon, Stowe, Vail, Snowbird, Big Sky, Chile, and Antarctica. Ryan and I had traveled so far together and learned so much about each other. But, just like stopping to rest over and over during the skin up, for much of his childhood, I stood in place and allowed others to make critical decisions about his care and well-being. Finally, one day, I started putting one foot in front of the other—slowly, even painfully at times—but I kept climbing. I learned that the experts were wrong about him because I came to appreciate that I knew him better. In the process, I watched my son tackle the toughest skiing terrain on the planet with skill, courage, and determination. He refused to quit until he conquered each run on his list. We started on a magic carpet and wound up on a magical continent where we reached the top of the mountain, but we recognized that the story doesn’t end there. Ryan still needed to ski down and then climb back up the next day, and the next. He needed to apply lessons learned on the mountain into his everyday life. More importantly, I needed to apply what I learned watching him ski to his everyday life. I had spent years fighting for his freedom, but now it was time for Ryan to decide where life might take him.