Deserving of Mourning

At 22 years old, he had everything to live for. It sounds cliché, but it’s the truth. He was a few months away from his college graduation and the beginning of the rest of his life. He had a strong, supportive family, a loving girlfriend and a future filled with open doors.

Ryan Armstrong was murdered on Friday, December 26th outside of a sports bar in Temecula, CA. The story my family was told on the morning of the 27th has seemed to change a lot since we heard the news. Originally he was in a fight with someone and he was stabbed and both of their bodies were lying in the hospital with the other person barely surviving. Then it turned out that other person lying in the hospital was a friend, and Ryan had gotten into a fight with a stranger who was being rude to his girlfriend. The story changed slightly a few more times before we heard that Ryan had stepped outside of the bar and been jumped by the other man and his friends and repeatedly stabbed before those other men hopped in their car and drove off. But no matter what really happened, the death of a young life is always a tragedy.

Ron and Debbie Armstrong have been the pastor and pastor’s wife of Cornerstone Community Church in Wildomar since I can remember. I grew up in that church. Our family lived a mile away from the Armstrong’s. I went over to their house and played basketball with their sons and ate dinner with them once as a child. I always felt so cool being at their house. They and my parents rotated who would drive Ryan and his brother Ross and I to school in junior high. Ron and Debbie love people. They always have. Not only have they given their entire lives to God, but they have given their lives to their church as well. I have always loved that church, and when I left for college, I always wondered how I would find a place that felt like Cornerstone did. So to see someone who has been so close to my family go through such a loss… it’s heartbreaking.

Here I am, sitting at my desk at work, trying to keep my tears back so the computer screen isn’t so blurry, crying because Ryan was too young to go… because a family close to ours lost a son… because life is too damn short… and because Ryan lived a life that is deserving of mourning.