![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feast of Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop & Doctor of the Church
Sounder Train, somewhere near Auburn, Washington
Dear friends,
Thank you for your support. I have been truly overwhelmed by the kindness and love shown to me and to my family in the past days.
Your thoughts and your prayers have been a source of solace and comfort in this impossible time.
I would like to especially thank those of you who made it to Tristan's sentencing yesterday. For those of you unable to attend, the normally negligent News Tribune did a good job at sensitively painting the scene.
Man, 22, apologizes for fatal crash that killed girlfriend
ADAM LYNN, The News Tribune
Published: 07/30/09 5:41 am | Updated: 07/30/09 6:06 am
"One life lost. One life wasted."
Those were the sentiments of Pierce County Superior Court Judge Frank Cuthbertson on Wednesday as he sentenced 22-year-old Tristan Ryng to two years, three months in prison for his role in the death of his girlfriend.
Ryng pleaded guilty last month to vehicular homicide in the April 2008 wreck that killed 18-year-old India Escobar, a popular student at the Tacoma School of the Arts.
Ryng admitted to driving recklessly when he sped across a parking lot and slammed into a tree. Escobar suffered a ruptured aorta in the crash and later died.
Police contended the couple had taken LSD before the wreck.
The sentence Cuthbertson imposed was the high end of the standard range, a punishment deputy prosecutor Tim Jones called "rather embarrassing, considering the loss of a life."
The victim's aunt, Kara Murphy, flew to Tacoma from Connecticut to attend the sentencing. She told Cuthbertson her niece was an "incredible young lady" who had the ability to make people feel special.
"Everybody thinks India was their best friend," she said. "We don't have her any more."
Her father, Jaime Escobar, a member of the Army, came to Tacoma from his assignment in Kuwait for the hearing. He testified that he and his only child were very close despite his frequent absences and that he misses her every day.
He then turned to Ryng, who leaned on crutches for support. He was run down by a hit-and-run driver in November and suffered multiple injuries.
"I trusted you with my daughter," Escobar said. "Why? Because my daughter was in love with you."
He then accused Ryng of pressuring Escobar into taking drugs and said she died because of Ryng's "stupidity."
Ryng's attorney, Robert Martin Krinsky, called Wednesday "a devastating day for Mr. Ryng."
"The love of his life died," Krinsky said.
Given a chance to speak for himself, Ryng apologized.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," he said. "I'm just so sorry. That's all I can say."
Shortly thereafter, a corrections officer led Ryng away.
SOURCE: http://www.thenewstribune.com/topstories/story/828136.html
What the article does not say is that, while the sentence was "at the high end of the standard range" it was, in fact, the high end of a lesser charge to which Tristan ended up pleading guilty, contrary to previous reports.
In closing, dear, dear, friends would like to share with you a passage from today's Office of Readings from a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus that struck me this morning:
It is a glorious world out there, created for our delight. While we some days do our level best to ruin it, to make the world a place of terror and filth and hatred, it is in the end a beautiful, wonderful world, and we should make the time to notice it every day.
So go out there and spread some joy.
Sounder Train, somewhere near Auburn, Washington
Dear friends,
Thank you for your support. I have been truly overwhelmed by the kindness and love shown to me and to my family in the past days.
Your thoughts and your prayers have been a source of solace and comfort in this impossible time.
I would like to especially thank those of you who made it to Tristan's sentencing yesterday. For those of you unable to attend, the normally negligent News Tribune did a good job at sensitively painting the scene.
Man, 22, apologizes for fatal crash that killed girlfriend
ADAM LYNN, The News Tribune
Published: 07/30/09 5:41 am | Updated: 07/30/09 6:06 am
"One life lost. One life wasted."
Those were the sentiments of Pierce County Superior Court Judge Frank Cuthbertson on Wednesday as he sentenced 22-year-old Tristan Ryng to two years, three months in prison for his role in the death of his girlfriend.
Ryng pleaded guilty last month to vehicular homicide in the April 2008 wreck that killed 18-year-old India Escobar, a popular student at the Tacoma School of the Arts.
Ryng admitted to driving recklessly when he sped across a parking lot and slammed into a tree. Escobar suffered a ruptured aorta in the crash and later died.
Police contended the couple had taken LSD before the wreck.
The sentence Cuthbertson imposed was the high end of the standard range, a punishment deputy prosecutor Tim Jones called "rather embarrassing, considering the loss of a life."
The victim's aunt, Kara Murphy, flew to Tacoma from Connecticut to attend the sentencing. She told Cuthbertson her niece was an "incredible young lady" who had the ability to make people feel special.
"Everybody thinks India was their best friend," she said. "We don't have her any more."
Her father, Jaime Escobar, a member of the Army, came to Tacoma from his assignment in Kuwait for the hearing. He testified that he and his only child were very close despite his frequent absences and that he misses her every day.
He then turned to Ryng, who leaned on crutches for support. He was run down by a hit-and-run driver in November and suffered multiple injuries.
"I trusted you with my daughter," Escobar said. "Why? Because my daughter was in love with you."
He then accused Ryng of pressuring Escobar into taking drugs and said she died because of Ryng's "stupidity."
Ryng's attorney, Robert Martin Krinsky, called Wednesday "a devastating day for Mr. Ryng."
"The love of his life died," Krinsky said.
Given a chance to speak for himself, Ryng apologized.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," he said. "I'm just so sorry. That's all I can say."
Shortly thereafter, a corrections officer led Ryng away.
SOURCE: http://www.thenewstribune.com/topstories/story/828136.html
What the article does not say is that, while the sentence was "at the high end of the standard range" it was, in fact, the high end of a lesser charge to which Tristan ended up pleading guilty, contrary to previous reports.
In closing, dear, dear, friends would like to share with you a passage from today's Office of Readings from a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus that struck me this morning:
Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God? Why render yourself such dishonour when you are honoured by him? Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom....The entire sermon is worth reading, but this was the part that particularly struck me today.
The earth was adorned with flowers, groves and fruit; and the constant marvellous variety of lovely living things was created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest sad solitude destroy the joy of God’s new creation. And the Creator still works to devise things that can add to your glory. He has made you in his image that you might in your person make the invisible Creator present on earth....
It is a glorious world out there, created for our delight. While we some days do our level best to ruin it, to make the world a place of terror and filth and hatred, it is in the end a beautiful, wonderful world, and we should make the time to notice it every day.
So go out there and spread some joy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 02:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 03:02 pm (UTC)i'm sorry...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 06:24 pm (UTC)Tristan
Date: 2009-07-30 06:28 pm (UTC)This is Liz
Date: 2009-07-30 06:41 pm (UTC)I am so sorry that this has happen to Tristan. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and the family.
Liz*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 10:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 10:51 pm (UTC)I am as ever in awe of your depth of spirit, and I know it'll carry you and yours through this, as ever.
Toward the light.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 11:13 pm (UTC)Were I to pray, I would pray that Tristan and India's family learn how to forgive. I know I still struggle with it for the man who killed my fiance with his car, but I'm glad I never had the opportunity to say the things I had been thinking at the time to the man. I wouldn't say them now.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-31 01:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-31 07:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-31 09:01 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry to hear of the weight of your troubles, and of the ones you're helping others to bear.
I have faith in your ability to persevere and to return to the ability to appreciate everyday beauty in the not-too-distant future, even if it is accompanied by a bittersweet counterpoint for a while.
You and yours are in my thoughts.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-01 05:45 am (UTC)