by: Joan Hitz
Ryan Rodriguez, third-born offspring, second grader, first (and only) son of Yvette and Ricky, knew he wasn’t going to Disney World this winter with his mother and sixteen-year-old sister, Amanda.
Ryan Rodriguez, third-born offspring, second grader, first (and only) son of Yvette and Ricky, knew he wasn’t going to Disney World this winter with his mother and sixteen-year-old sister, Amanda.
Amanda is part of the Lindenhurst Varsity Cheerleading team, which this year, for the first time ever, qualified for the National High School Cheerleading Championship finals in Orlando.
On the dark, cold morning of Friday, February 10, Yvette, Amanda, 22 other cheerleaders and their coaches would depart Lindenhurst at 4 a.m. by bus and cars, headed for a 7:05 a.m. flight from JFK to Florida.
For the next five dark, cold February days, Ryan, his dad, Ricky, who works the 3 a.m. - 1 p.m. shift for UPS, based in JFK, and sister, Stefanie, who attends college, would remain home and carry on. As usual.
While Yvette delivered Amanda to Disney World, Stefanie would roust Ryan from bed and deliver him to Alleghany Avenue School, where he is employed as a hand-raising constituent in the elementary classroom of Mrs. Jean Gallipani.
Though he adores school, and his teacher, Ryan tolerated this unsavory information - that 2/5 of his family would temporarily relocate to the Magic Kingdom without him - like any seven-year-old would. He whined.
“I’ll miss you, Mommy, I wannnnnnna go ...”
“Ryan, we’ll go this summer. You wouldn’t want to this time. You don’t want to be with a bunch of girls ...”
“Yes I dooooo! That doesn’t matter!”
Being a boy with three “mothers” (his sisters were 9 and 11 when he arrived), Ryan holds his own hanging with older women.
And, lacking the keys, and license (and racecar), which could deliver him to numerous places of real import, such as toy stores and Slurpee-dispensing locales, Ryan instead spends much of his free time among ... girls. Cheerleaders. (Yvette totes him to Amanda’s practice each week.)
Five days of hovering cheerleaders didn’t matter to him. What did matter was that he wasn’t going.
But Yvette had a secret up her sleeve (or, an extra airline ticket). The staff at Ryan’s school, where Yvette also works, knew. So did the cheerleading squad.
The week before the trip, everyone took pleasure making Ryan-sightings in the hallway. It’s fun to watch a kid about to win the lottery. However, three days before departure, Ryan began to cough. There was some suspense, but at the pediatrician’s, when Yvette handed the doctor a note revealing Ryan’s future whereabouts, the medical man laughed, examined his throat, then pronounced, cryptically, that Ryan was fit to fly.
So on the dark, cold morning of February 10, a pre-sunrise caravan rolled out of Lindenhurst bearing 23 cheerleaders, 2 coaches, one sly mother and one groggy boy. Ryan thought that his dad, on shift at JFK, would drive him home later for school.
After a long wait, in hard airport chairs, came the moment for Ryan to say ‘good-bye.’ To the team. To his sister.
And, to his mom.
“We milked it till the last second,” says Yvette. “Then, the cheerleaders surrounded us with their video cameras running.”
Yvette handed Ryan a boarding pass.
“Read this.”
“I can’t! Big words.”
“Just these two words ...”
There, at the top corner, his name.
An intake of breath. An exhale. “I’m ... going?”
And then ... “I’m GOOOOOOOOOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“It got better and better and better,” says Yvette. “First, he’s treated to a quick look at the cockpit. Then, the pin with the wings. We sit in coach, a giant group, in Lindy green. As we’re approaching landing, the captain announces on the speaker that ‘Ryan Rodriguez in Seat 22E is completing his first flight ever.’ Ryan’s eyes get wider than the wingspan of the airplane, and the entire cabin erupts in ... cheers! He’s surrounded by cheerleaders.
“But the best part: As we’re debarking, the captain asks us to stay. He escorts Ryan into the cockpit and says, ‘Take a seat.’
“The photo I took of this hugely grinning boy in the pilot’s seat of a jumbo jetliner is better than ten trips to Disney World.”
Ryan spent the next five days with Yvette in a Disney dream. The Lindenhurst cheerleaders placed eleventh in the nation.
Ryan, too, honed his cheerleading skills. On the flight home, before returning his tray table to the upright position for landing, the veteran flier used the twistable craft sticks from his kid’s meal box to spell something out for his mother: I♡you.
The cockpit photo is currently being enlarged - to dimensions as big as a little boy’s surprise trip - and being hung in the little boy’s bedroom.
Three cheers for the Lindenhurst cheerleaders.
Three cheers for Ryan.
Three cheers for anyone who makes magic for anyone else.
Especially in the dark, cold month of February.
