Barbara Ryan

Words of Remembrance for Barbara Ryan Delivered at Her Funeral Mass on April 20, 2018   Welcome to my mom’s sanctuary. Welcome to my sanctuary. As a daily communicant, my mom would come here and offer herself to God. In this place she would make her prayers of adoration, contrition, petition and thanksgiving. My mom loved her faith. She believed, as did Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town said, “Without God at the beginning, there can be only confusion at the end.”   Barbara had a Catholic library to help maintain and deepen her faith: The Holy Bible; the Catechism of the Catholic Church; her tattered Daily Roman Missal, a Book of Saints to inspire her children, among others. But to her, that set was incomplete without one more thing: The Washington Post, the newspaper whose famous slogan was, “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.” As theologian Karl Barth said, “A preacher should preach with the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”   You see, my mom was of the Dorothy Day ilk. She observed James 2:15-16 where it says, “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?” Faith without works is dead.   If the Bible is not your thing, allow me to put it in the vernacular. Barbara didn’t just talk to talk. She walked the walk. She did the messy and sometimes thankless job of being a mother to everyone, including but not limited to her own children, neighbors, exchange students and kids who were victims of a cold and impersonal juvenile justice system. As foster parents, my mom and dad performed countless spiritual and corporal works of mercy as they sheltered, comforted and counseled homeless teens. As a psychiatric nurse in a drug treatment center, my mom embraced her patients without judgement to help them let go, let God and heal.   Most of us recall Pope Francis’s famous remark of “Who am I to judge?” With all due respect to our Holy Father, my mom had him beat by four decades. I recall her comforting a sobbing teen who had been shunned by his family and bullied by classmates because of his sexual orientation. This was 1979, mind you. My mom embraced this child without any intention to convert what God had already made in his image. Let’s remember that Jesus often broke with societal and religious customs to honor the dignity of others.   My mom loved her faith.   Most importantly, her faith gave her the grace to be closer to God. It also inspired her to change the world one child at a time. My mother also enjoyed her faith’s tangible protocols, the sacraments, the Order of the Mass, the universality of the Church and how a Sunday Mass celebrated in Bowie, MD was the same Sunday Mass being celebrated in say, Tokyo, Japan.   Barbara Ryan loved especially the rhythm of the liturgical calendar and how it synchronized with the seasons of the year. I think it helped her frame time as it helps me now frame the rest of this eulogy. So allow me to distill the upbringing my mom provided into a single year, beginning, of course, with Advent.   My mom bequeathed to her seven children a love of Christmas. I remember the smell of pine, the stickiness of sap and the arguments that would ensue as it took hours to properly erect our overgrown, oblong Douglas fir, which always looked better on the Kiwanis Club lot. We would then add our decorations, which included dangerously broken ornaments, half-working lights, and way too much tinsel. It was the most garish eyesore you’ve ever seen – and we loved it.   After tending to our Advent calendars and candles and watching every Christmas special ever made, the season culminated with our cousins in Frederick, where Christmas Eve Mass was followed by dinner and a punishingly cold ride through the historic district by horse-drawn carriage.   After thawing out and returning home, but before “sugar plums danced in our heads,” my mom would amuse us with “Twas The Night Before Christmas” as each of us would decorate our own cardboard box into which Santa would deposit the rewards of a year well-lived. We would then line our boxes from youngest to oldest. While this tradition may seem quaint, it was Barbara’s pragmatism on display. Boxes spared Santa the time and expense of wrapping gifts and precluded any debate about what belonged to whom. Smart lady.   Christmas then rolled into New Year’s and our toys were steadily abandoned, lost, stolen or broken. Nevertheless, there was still the chance of snow and seven birthdays on the horizon, starting with mine in January. My mom was diligent about sending us birthday wishes, even mailing them several weeks in advance. It was a small token that put a smile on our face when we got that envelope with the most beautiful handwriting, a talent she perfected during 16 years of Catholic school.   As the mercury dropped and a snowy forecast from Gordon Barnes created a buzz in the Pantry Pride, my mom would fill her cart with five gallons of milk and enough Chef Boyardee to survive an apocalypse. She loved the hype. She got excited for us the next morning as those five beautiful words from WTOP blared from her kitchen radio, “Prince George’s County Schools Closed.”   The winter would then give way to the hopefulness of spring as my mom would buy new plants and rearrange the furniture and all the Ryan kids would make a Lenten pledge to be kinder to each other. Of course, these promises were broken before the ashes could even be washed off our foreheads. During this time, my mom did her best to ensure our abstinence on Fridays through meatless Happy Italian Delight pizza. She would also teach us about the sacrifice of Jesus by traveling to DC on Good Friday and visiting the Franciscan Monastery. It featured compelling replicas of the Holy Land where you could visit shrines and walk the catacombs. It was like heaven. As a little kid, I honestly thought Jesus was a DC resident. It was my mom’s clever way of showing that God is with us.   My mom showed us that God is not only present in buildings, books and rituals, but also in nature, recreation and relationships. She was Mother Superior of our block. In the summer, she would gather us and as many of our friends from the neighborhood that she could cram into her Chevy Rambler station wagon. There were more kids than seat belts. During the day, she would take us to places like Belair Swim & Racquet, Allen Pond Park, Sandy Point, Bay Ridge, Cunningham Falls, Rehoboth and Ocean City. In the evening, it was my dad’s turn. He would take us to see these guys named Brooks, Jim, Rick, Cal and Eddie.   For many of our neighbors, our house was the destination. We never locked our doors and kids would come and go and raid our fridge and sleep over without permission. It was a different time. Our house was the epicenter.   “Our house, in the middle of our street, Our house, it had a crowd. There was always something happening, And it was usually quite loud. Our mom, she was so house-proud. Nothing ever slowed her down, And a mess was not allowed.”   Well, messes were expected but you had better be quiet at dusk as my mom’s unique circadian clock sometimes put her in bed before the sun set. There was a time when she began her nightly routine by watching the game show, Tic Tac Dough. I remember lying down next to her, watching in amazement as she would blurt out the answers before Wink Martindale could even finish the questions. Why wasn’t she ever a contestant, I thought.   Barbara Ryan was an encyclopedic, artistic, problem-solving prodigy who once taught a high school religion class in the day and a college nursing class in the evening. We were blessed to have her tutelage as the start of school rudely awakened us from the delightful dog days of summer. It was time to plug in. If we wanted to fake sick or bring home a bad report card now, my dad was your go-to guy.   I remember my mom exercising tough love during my first semester in college when after trying everything to alleviate my homesickness, she finally reached her breaking point and demanded that I either come home or stop feeling sorry for myself. It was a timely kick in the butt that led to four glorious years. Barbara knew when to play her cards.   Autumn was a new beginning as school was starting, the Redskins were not yet eliminated from the playoffs and there were national or local elections that promised renewal and hope. My mom and dad actively supported their favorite candidates and were especially involved on the local level. One of their friends and favorite candidates was Frank Francois, a Prince George's County Councilman. Frank once invited my parents to an event where his wife, Eileen, introduced my mom to a large gathering of Bowie’s political elite, our very own bold and beautiful, if you will. Eileen announced to everyone, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Barbara Ryan, the person who raised all of our children.” Although my mom was a nurse, a teacher, an activist, an artist and a mother, it was the latter that defined her.   So, the days got shorter, the leaves turned colors and on that fourth Thursday in November, we would set the table with my grandmother’s finest china. It was the only time we used that place setting. My siblings and I would say the same quiet prayer to ourselves, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost, whoever eats the fastest, eats the most.” But over the cling of glasses and utensils and kids bellowing with their mouths full, I could hear my mom offering a simple prayer of thanksgiving.   Thank you, Mom.   And thank you to everyone here. Your presence alone is an act of love that brings great comfort to my family.  ****************************************************************************Barbara Ryan (nee Widmayer) , 79, of Bowie, MD passed away peacefully in Washington, DC on Saturday evening, April 14, with her children and only sister by her side. Beloved wife for 51 years of the late Michael Ryan, Sr., devoted mother of Beth (Tony) Mancini of Lake Wales, FL, Michael Ryan, Jr. of Bowie, MD, Patricia Ryan of Edgewater, MD, Thomas Ryan of Lanham, MD, Dennis (Laura) Ryan of Arlington, VA, Shannon (Chris) Lopez of Winter Haven, FL, and Mary Meghan Ryan of Bowie, MD; loving grandmother of Katie (Giuseppe) Pettinari, Trey and Meredith Mancini, Caroline and Shelby Ryan, Maddie and Emma Ryan, and Nicholas and Colin Lopez; loving great-grandmother of Domenico and Gianluca Pettinari; and adored sister of Janis (Frank) Vasquenza. Barbara was born on January 23, 1939 in Washington, DC. She graduated from The Academy of the Holy Cross in 1956 and then earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from The Catholic University of America in 1960. On John F. Kennedy’s inaugural weekend, amid 8 inches of snowfall, she married Michael at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Bethesda, MD. Barbara’s wonderful life was celebrated at a funeral Mass on Friday, April 20 at 1:00 at Ascension Catholic Church in Bowie, MD. Father Larry Young officiated the ceremony. Please donate to Covenant House, 5 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10001, “In Memory of Barbara Ryan”, Attention: Sandra Latchman. Condolences can be sent to Beall Funeral Home.