Wesley Ryan adored his automobile. He, however, loved his family above all else.
When Ryan’s wife Laura was diagnosed with ovarian cancer as a young mother in 1993, he put the white Ford Mustang GT he had for sale to help pay for treatment.
Jake’s father still has snapshots of him riding in the car, sitting in a booster seat right next to his sister Jeni, and daydreaming about one day being able to drive the lovely vehicle himself. He stated that selling the car was “One of the biggest sacrifices that I have ever seen him make just for his family, for all of us really. I looked into his eyes as the new owner came to pick the car and as the car was being driven out of our house, I could see just how much the whole thing just broke him in half. It is one of the days in my life that I can never forget”
When his family and wife put a blindfold on him in the parking lot of a department store earlier this month, Wesley, who is 47, was at a loss for ideas. When they removed the blindfold, Wesley was standing in front of the Mustang on the back of a flatbed truck. He broke down into tears when he saw it.
The extremely lovely moment was filmed live on film, with the Zac Brown Band song “My Old Man” playing in the background. Jake later uploaded the video to his Facebook profile.
Jake told the San Antonio Express-News that he found the vehicle a few years ago while looking for vehicles on Craigslist, but he couldn’t get a good price for it. Jake and Jena decided to buy it again after seeing it once more recently.
So they all decided to chip in and buy it, with the intention of passing on their good fortune forward in a way that none of them could have predicted.
In a stunning turn of events, the seller was also getting ready to sell it due to her mother’s illness and the fact that they were wanting to sell it as a way of paying for her treatment.
At the very least, things should work out for this woman as well as they did for Laura, who Jake claimed has been cancer-free for the past 13 years.
“Just shows where they are; they are completely balanced people,” he told the Express-News about his kids’ reaction to him. “I believe that my wife and I have succeeded beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt we have raised a set of productive adults. In truth, this is the strongest, most powerful feeling that any parent can ever have.”
Jake said that he’s eager to assist his father in getting started on the car and relive the experience of riding in the “co-pilot” seat once more.
