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Ryan Patrick Kishbaugh 
July 26, 1984 - January 3, 2003
Diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease 10/15/2001
Bone Marrow Transplant 11/19/02 at Duke University
Check out new photos (08/06/2004)
Journal
Thursday, November 22, 2007 10:43 PM CST Article published in the newspaper today.
Ryan Kishbaugh's final chapter
Brett Friedlander, staff writer
“We can choose to go quietly to our death or we can choose to leave something behind, to stand up and be heard. And I have decided to stand up and be heard. So I leave this to go and try to start my book, which is what I will leave behind. Per these words, my voice will be heard.”
— Ryan Patrick Kishbaugh
In at least one sense, Ryan Kishbaugh’s dying wish had already come true. Almost five years after losing his battle with cancer, his voice was still being heard.
The only problem is, the words that reverberated in his mother’s ears weren’t those by which he longed to be remembered.
“Why haven’t you finished my book?” Roberta Humphries would hear her son say every time she visited him at the cemetery or sat down to re-read one of the five journals he filled with the most intimate details of his all-too-short life.
Her first reaction was to say that she didn’t have time, even though she knew that wasn’t true. The fact is, she simply couldn’t bring herself to relive the unthinkable heartache a parent feels when she loses a child — especially one so full of life and ambition.
Besides, through the foundation she helped start with her ex-husband David and two other sons, Chris and Sean, Ryan’s memory was already being honored with an annual 5K run, a soccer tournament and other charitable events.
And that seemed to be enough, until a change of careers last summer gave her some unexpected time off to do some thinking. It was then that she came to a chilling realization.
She was letting Ryan down by not finishing the book he had started during the final few months of his treatment.
So tempering her tears with ink, Humphries sat down with Fayetteville publisher Tom Davis and wrote the final chapter of “Run Because You Can: My Personal Race With Cancer.”
Timeless gift
The book, produced locally by Old Mountain Press and Total Vision Technologies, is more than just a poignant study of life and death, love and family, triumph and tragedy — as told through the words of a remarkable young athlete.
It’s also a timeless gift from a mother to her son and one last comforting hug from that son back to his mother.
“Everyone in the process of grieving and closure has different steps they have to go through, and it’s not the same for everyone,” said Humphries, a real estate agent with no formal writing background. “For me, I felt like this was the last thing I was supposed to do for Ryan.
“The book is something he really wanted to do. He was always so animated about it. He even said it would make a good Lifetime Network movie and talked about who he might want to play him. So until I got it published, I felt like I had left something undone.”
‘Seize the day’
Despite living only 18 years, the literary account of Ryan’s battle was one of the few items of unfinished business he left behind when he died on Jan. 3, 2003.
That’s what makes his story so inspiring.
“Once you have walked on the threshold of death, you learn to appreciate life all the more fully. So don’t miss out on one day of it,” Ryan wrote in one of his final journal entries, one his mother used as the ending to her final chapter. “Pain is living, and while life is full of pain and suffering and despair, it is all we have. Carpe Diem. Seize the day!”
It’s a philosophy by which he attacked each and every day of his battle with cancer.
This is, after all, a kid who helped his Fayetteville Academy soccer team win a state championship despite being so sick from chemotherapy that he threw up five times on the bus ride home. And who, a few weeks later, made a pair of game-winning free throws for the basketball team only hours after being unhooked from an intravenous line at Duke Medical Center.
He was smart enough to be the salutatorian of his graduating class, yet humble enough to openly wonder why people insisted on making such a fuss over his accomplishments. In the end, the things that were most important to him were the gifts he left behind — the words and feelings he hoped might someday help ease the pain of others fighting a similar battle.
“People always ask me, ‘Do you think he knew he was going to die?’” Humphries said. “I don’t think he planned on dying. He was such a fighter and had so many plans for the future. But I think that in his mind, that if he was going to die, he wanted to make sure that he had accomplished something. That’s why it was so important to publish this book.”
Now that she has, Humphries plans to bring a copy to Ryan the next time she visits him at the cemetery. She’s having a Lucite case made for it, so that she can leave the book on his grave.
When she does, there’s a good chance she’ll once again hear her son’s voice reverberating in her ears. Only this time, his words will be much more appropriate — especially on this beloved family holiday.
“Thanks, mom,” it will say. “Thanks for everything.”
Staff writer Brett Friedlander can be reached at friedlanderb@fayobserver.com or 486-3513.
Copyright 2007 - The Fayetteville Observer
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