Tragedy in Minneapolis. Again.

Minnesota wasn't always this way.

Yesterday, two children, ages 8 and 10, were murdered in a shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic church. Students, teachers and Annunciation Church parishioners were attending a traditional all-school mass to celebrate the beginning a new school year. 18 other children and adults were injured, some severly. 

I've never seen so many broadcasters struggle to contain their emotions as they report on the shooting and I can't even think about it without feeling the tears well up. This morning, I had that hung-over , post nightmare feeling that follows a restless night caused by a traumatic event. I thought about the parents who were awaking to their first full day without a beloved child to send off to school. I reflected on the family of the shooter, who must today be reliving moments when they might have been able to keep their family member from the terrible murderous path that ended in death, serious injury and probable lifelong consequences for victims.

A few hours ago, I listened to a press conference with executives and trauma personnel from Hennepin Health Care, formerly Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), who detailed yesterday's horrific events from their perspective. They praised first responders, teachers and students themselves who all did the right thing to save children. A 10-year-old boy described how a friend, "Victor", had covered him with his own body and been injured by gunfire in the shooting. A heroic eighbor ran toward the crime scene , with a view to neutralizing further threats and helping the victims

I was most impressed by the description and implementation of incident plans that included the well coordinated roles of everyone from first responders to emergency room providers, nurses, trauma surgeons, and support staff for victims' families. The first ambulance arrived at HCMC within 10 minutes. Within 25 minutes of the shooting, other ambulances transported non-critical patients Children's Hospital (Minneapolis) and North Memorial Hospital (Robbinsdale).

 I've received messages from friends and acquaintances around the world, concerned about my family and me. Fortunately, immediate family members and friends were not directly involved in this incident. However, I feel heartbroken but frighteningly numb as well, not totally surprised but, concurrently, outraged and convinced that we have the tools to manage and mitigate the reality of gun violence.

Local, state, and federal legislators have the power to act. It's up to us, their constituents, to let them know we deserve, demand and expect action.

Paradise Lost

I visited Minnesota for the first time in late April 1982. Spring was early that year, and I awoke to the sound of birds chirping enthusiastically in the Highland neighborhood of St. Paul. I had to go out for a walk in this idyllic place: the air was fresh and clean, trees were already in full bloom, and I ambled safely a few blocks to Highland Village, crossed Ford Parkway and continued along Cleveland Avenue to the campus of then College of St. Catherine. A few students were on campus, but I was mostly alone with rabbits, squirrels, nesting mallards, and a few geese. I saw my first cardinal ever, singing his heart out with what is now a familiar mating call.

I thought I had arrived in paradise, nestled away in this previously unknown center of the country. A little over a year later I moved here after Bob and I were married, and every day I seemed to discover some new idyllic spot. As the years passed, I fell in love with the land, water and people of Minnesota. I could not imagine a more perfect place on earth, no matter how many lovely places I visited.

I saw the hint of a crack in my rose-colored image one noon hour around 2011 or so. I had gone for a walk in the St. Paul skyways over the noon hour when excessive heat precluded my usual outdoor noon walk. By then, many businesses had already left the downtown area and the skyway was empty.  I felt uneasy when I heard footsteps behind me, stopped when I stopped, and beginning again, getting a little closer with every step. I moved as fast as I could to get to an stairwell leading to the street below, and hoped that the door at the bottom would be unlocked. Fortunately, it was, and the person who seemed to be following me did not emerge behind me. I wondered if the experience had perhaps been the result of an overactive imagination, but from then on I avoided all but the populated skyway near my work. Around the same time, after incidents not far from home, I stopped walking after sunset on the nearby ampus of St. Thomas University.

Fast forward to the COVID year of 2020. George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, just across the Mississippi River from home. The world suddently became aware of Minnesota, and not in a good away. Last June, on Flag Day, the assassination and attempted assassination of two Minnesota legislators and their spouses was a stark confirmation that violence and extremism had invaded our beautiful heartland; thereby forever robbing me of my innocent belief in paradise on earth.

CT Scan and Oncology Appointment - Thoracic Surgery 05.24.24 T+458

My recovery from last year's middle lobectomy has been uneventful, and I really haven't worried much about a recurrence of cancer. However, yesterday I woke up feeling a little uneasy and wondered if my Celtic imagination wasn't warning me about a bad outcome to today's CT scan. The feeling persisted when the radiology report wasn't released in the usual ten or fifteen minutes, but I was calmed by my oncology  nurse practioner's assurance that she didn't see anything different or worrisome in the scan.

Turns out the feeling was just some kind of existential anxiety and not premonition. The radiologist's report was published about three hours after the scan and no changes or reasons for concern were flagged. Once again, I'm grateful to all the doctors, nurses, caregivers, support staff, family and friends who have stayed on this journey with me.

First of many posts in this story.

Passages. Steve Ryan : November 5,1943 - August 11, 2025.

My brother Steve died on August 11, after suffering several years of declining health. I will always be grateful for my sister-in-law June's loving care and the devotion of other friends and relatives. June's sister Phyllis, as well as our brother Allan and his wife Laurel, were among Steve's most faithful visitors. The obituary guestbook includes memories that made me smile.

Steve's funeral was on Tuesday, August 19, so I've had some time to collect my thoughts and calm my soul after my one day in Toronto. I was very touched by the comments and condolences of Steve and June's many friends and former co-workers.

After the millennium began and until my 75th birthday on the the eve of Steve's death, he and I emailed memories to each other on our birthdays. We both enjoyed doing so, and for me, the exchange was an opportunity to share an intimacy that we rarely experienced growing up, or as moved through our adult lives. Our exchanges nearly always involved snow, water or other outdoor activities from our childhood and adolescence in our hometown of Temiscaming, Quebec.

Steve was the only Ryan not born in Temiscaming. He was a WWII baby, born a month early in New Brunswick, where our dad, Harry Joseph Ryan, was still serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force after arduous wartime missions overseas. Our mother, Mary Coleraine Ryan (née Macpherson) once told me that she had never been as cold as she was in that first winter of Steve's life, isolated in a frigid house far away from Montreal, where she had lived and worked most of her life before marriage.

As a little girl, I was very envious of Steve's early years, living in Nitro, a 1940s company town built to house workers of the Cominion Industries, Ltd. munitions plant. Housing for returning WWII veterans was hard to find, and the little Ryan family lived there for some time while our dad was attending law school at McGill -- an hour's train ride away. Our grandmother, Mary (Smith) Macpherson, was "Mamma Glasses" to "Stevie", who was the grandchild she knew best. I used to love hearing he stories of Steve's pet rabbit, the cows in the nearby fields, and the time Steve caught a fish "down the hill" and our mother, a city girl, needed our dad to take the fish off the hook. The stories were, to me, evidence of an exciting and happy personal history.

One of my early memories as a very young child is of Steve heading off to St. Theresa's School on a rainy morning, wearing his dark brown leather backpack, stopping every couple of feet to rescue a worm and place it gently on the grass. Steve was known for his love of all creatures, including snakes. He once kept a small terrarium under our back porch and set out regularly on snake catching trips up the hill to the Temiscaming Golf Course. On one such adventure, I was bitten by some kind of green snake, and was sworn to secrecy about the incident, so that Steve wouldn't get into trouble for harming his little sister. He assured me that if I told, he would never take me snake catching again. Well, I didn't tell, but had no inclination to go on subsequent expeditions.

Steve taught all of us little kids to play cards: hearts, mostly, with Steve sitting in an armchair (where he could see our hands) and the three of us on the floor. We also played bridge and long games of Monopoly and Sorry, Crokinole and early versions of NHL table top hockey. Steve's love of chess was well remembered at his funeral, and I have mental images of him teaching my siblings Marilyn and Allan to play. When he first went to the University of Toronto, he would talk about playing "Eastern Europeans" in High Park. I imagined silent hours in the park with refugees and recent immigrants, with no desire or need for conversation.

At the U of T, Steve was a member of swim and ski teams. Because of him, we younger kids all ecame competent swimmers. He taught me to ski, insisting that I shouldn't be afraid of knocking down his homemade slalom poles. Sometimes the rough edges of a pole would leave a scratch on my face and I never much liked slalom for that reason . Steve worked hard at his jumping skills, and one late March afternoon,we played hooky from a crowded Good Friday liturgy to go skiing at the old Temiscaming Ski Club. My main assignment that day was to measure the length of his jumps. I got tired and bored as the afternoon wore on, but finally figured out that he wouldn't leave until he got his best jump. After I added a couple of inches, we finally left before dark and skied down the trail to our house on Elm Street.

Friends and relatives all have a Steve story, from his early life in Temiscaming, including the time he worked at the mill, then owned by Canadian International Paper. Friends from Temiscaming have sometimes stopped me in mid-sentence to ask about Steve. A friend who wrote a memorial tribute commented that he was "unique", a good word for someone with a broad and eclectic knowledgebase encompassing every subject from ancient history to sports.

My favorite recent memories of Steve are from the weddings of Allan and Laurel's daughter Chrissie to Alex (2014) and our son Chris to Melissa (2018). The gap closed on years of separation as the Ryan siblings laughed and danced and genuinely enjoyed one another's company.

After our mom died in 1997, Steve told me he hoped he would one day reunite with our parents. St. Augustine wrote that our hearts are restless until they rest in the Lord, and I believe that our union with God after death will somehow include those we have loved on earth. This is what I wish for Steve. May he rest in peace until we meet again.

Three-Quarter Century Eye-Opener

I usually write about "the turn" around my birthday -- the day when signs of fall become unmistakable and Minnesotans begin to think about planning for the long winter, now not so far in the future. This time last year I noted the shocking reality of waking up in my mid-seventies, maybe not yet "elderly", defined by some researchers as people who have a statistical 4% chance of dying within a year.  This actuarial table seems to give me less than a 3% chance of not making another year, so I guess I can stay off the "elderly" list on this, my 75th birthday.

Coincidentally, today's reading from St. Luke's Gospel  reminds us to be vigilant and "prepared". The number 75 is certainly sobering, but it is one that fills me with awe (how the hell did I get this old?) and gratitude (how did I get so lucky?).  As my friends and I hit the three-quarter century mark, I think of those who haven't made it this far. Some, like several childhood classmates, never even reached adulthood. Others died in middle age, but here I am, not too decrepit yet, happy at the desk in my newly re-arranged office, looking out at my flowers and quiet street beyond. I feel pretty good despite despite the political and social turmoil that surrounds me.  

I begin the next quarter-century determined to be prepared but live joyfully, not overly preoccupied with myself and petty concerns.Happy Birthday to me, to friends born on August 10th, and to all members of the 75th Anniversary Class of 2025.