What began as an awful tragedy very soon after became one of the most incredible stories I have ever heard!
Ryan from Oklahoma and Jessica from Michigan had both lost the other halves, their spouses, to brain cancer in August of 2010, they hadn’t a clue what to do or where to turn to, they felt completely lost.
Their spouses had passed only four days apart, both of them had also been keeping a blog of their difficulties, somewhere though, somebody had been reading both their blogs!
That person contacted Jessica, they said:
“There’s this man in Oklahoma who lost his wife four days after you lost your husband and I just think you could be encouraging to him.”
She left him a message on his own blog, she offered to talk on email or phone, if he wanted to.
However, she didn’t know was that one of Ryan’s children came home and was asking about a “new mom”. It really caught him off guard, it had, after all only been two months since she had passed away.
That night, he prayed with his children, and he said:
“God, if that’s what I’m supposed to do, give me a sign, show me something… just prepare my heart for something like that.”
The very following morning he got Jessica’s message:
After that the rest really seems history, they chatted each other’s socks down, hours at a time, then in December, they decided to meet.
They chose Savannah to meet, in Georgia, after all, it was “neutral ground,”. It was a place both had always intended to visit, but never quite made it there, they certainly didn’t anticipate they would make it there under these circumstances!
In all the phone calls and emails they had really made such a great connection with each other, it really helped them figure out what they wanted, no kids involved, just the two of them communicating.
Ryan said:
“Both of us had really good marriages and thought, ‘I want to do this again.’ I knew very quickly, even in the conversations, that I wanted her to be my wife and spend time with her for the rest of my life”
Everything was really great between them, and so it was that they got married in April 2011, the only thing next was to decide who would move in with who!
Jessica’s son was disabled, Lucas, and he went to a lovely school already, it was logical that Ryan moves his three kids to Grand Rapids, Michigan, which he did, with Jessica and of course her four children she already had.
Wow, seven kids, half of them not your own, well they are really strong and they absolutely made it work.
Ryan said:
“The kids all just meshed as if they were brothers and sisters from day one. It’s just amazing how they just took to each other immediately”
Just to put the icing on the cake, they are a family of ten, having had another child of their own in 2015. In 2013 they upped and moved to Tennessee, they now have 30 acres and a big country style house they all live in!
This huge happy family really is a great example of how to fight for love and live your life with determination and zest! Please SHARE with friends and family and let’s inspire others to have the same zest for life!
