Brady turns 18 today.
He should be here: celebrating, laughing, opening presents, eating chocolate cake, surrounded by friends. Instead, after he left us for Heaven seven months ago, we are honoring his life in a different way.
Brady was so good. He was so, so good. Inherently, deeply, pervasively good. Kind and generous and noble and brave and strong. He instinctively put other people before himself, always. He had compassion and insight that felt far beyond his years. He was so kind and so pure. He had this rare ability to see the best in people, and to bring it out in them. He noticed when someone was hurting and moved toward them. He was generous to a fault. He found joy and happiness in small things. He shared it freely, even when his world had become so small.
Even as his body slowly failed him, none of this ever faded. He kept choosing joy. He kept choosing connection. He kept choosing love. And if you knew him, you know: this was his superpower.
Our Goal: $20,000
In honor of Brady’s 18th birthday, we are raising $20,000 to support three causes that reflect the heart of who he was:
1. The Brady Ranville Mustang Fund at NorthPointe Christian School
Brady loved school with his entire heart. He loved Young Fives. He loved kindergarten. But as his health became more complicated, nothing about his education was ever truly normal after those early years. First grade was tricky as symptoms emerged. Second grade was incredibly complicated, with hospitalizations and a desperate effort to keep up with his early education while trying to understand what was happening to his body.
By third grade, his health had declined further. His body would lock up, and we would wait for him to become functional just to get him to school. Then the school would call when he inevitably froze, and we would race to pick him up. We would rush home and wait for his body to cooperate again. And the moment it did, he would jump up and race back to the car to return to class. Sometimes we did this 15 times a day. But if his body was working, he wanted to be there, day after day after day. He never lost his passion for being in school. He loved his teachers. He loved his classmates. He loved learning. He loved school activities. He loved Spanish, gym, recess, field trips, and hot lunch.
Eventually, homeschooling became our only option. It was devastating because one of his deepest desires was simply to go to school with all of his friends. When we moved the girls from our local public school to NorthPointe Christian, I remember touring the middle and high school with him. He was already in a wheelchair, but still moving and talking. He loved it immediately. He said he already felt like a Mustang before we even formally enrolled the girls. He wanted to go, but wanted to be more stable first. Still, he considered it his school too. Sometimes we would sit in the car and watch kids walk by and wonder together if they might one day be his friends. Eventually, we stopped believing high school would happen. But he never stopped wanting it.
What always struck me was how simple and pure his desires were. He didn’t want anything flashy or special. He wanted normal. Math class. Friends. Lunch in the cafeteria. Just simple, everyday life. When he died, NorthPointe dropped off a letter jacket with his name on it. He would have loved it. It’s hanging in his bedroom, draped across his desk chair that he had planned to use for homework in high school.
In his honor, we are creating the Brady Ranville Mustang Fund at NorthPointe Christian High School. Brady would have been a senior next year, in the class of 2027. Each year, we will award a scholarship in Brady’s name to a deserving senior who best reflects the bravery and perseverance Brady demonstrated every single day.
2. Certain Hope
Before I found Certain Hope, I felt incredibly alone in our life with Brady. Leaving the house was complicated. Including him meaningfully while still giving the girls full experiences felt overwhelming. Even well-meaning interactions often made things harder. But Certain Hope changed that.
It’s a community of families like ours, where kids like Brady are included naturally. Other children approach them without hesitation because it’s their normal, too. Parents understand each other without explanation. They host events designed for families like ours that are fully accessible and fully inclusive for the entire family. They even have a portable bathroom that works for kids like Brady, too, because you have no idea how hard it is to use the bathroom out in public with a child with profound disabilities!
At my first Certain Hope event after Brady died, I didn’t really know what I was stepping into. And then I walked into my own community. I felt like a unicorn that had somehow stumbled into a field of other unicorns I didn’t know existed. Families like mine. I watched one mom use a suction machine with her son and then roller skate with him while her husband skated with their daughters. They all sat and ate together while she managed his feeding tube. I remember just sitting there, watching, wondering how I had gone so many years without knowing there were other families living the way we lived. I love being there! To be around kids like him, around moms like me, surrounded by families doing hard things and living anyway. We are honored to donate to Certain Hope in Brady’s name to support future events for kids like Brady.
3. Mid-Michigan Pug Club and Rescue
Pugs were Brady’s signature, and his source of tremendous joy. Bucky Waffles brought him so much happiness. I will never regret adding a third dog to our family when we had absolutely no business doing so. Bucky Waffles made Brady’s deepest wish come true.
He was thrilled when we discovered the Mid-Michigan Pug Club and Rescue. Pugs are fairly delicate creatures and are unfortunately often rehomed. The club rescues pugs, provides medical care, and places them in permanent, loving homes. Brady was a proud, card-carrying member of this organization. Once a month, we would load Brady and Bucky into the car, set him up in a ground-level chair, and take him to the club’s monthly pug meetup filled with dozens of other pug lovers. Pugs would climb all over him, licking his face. Bucky Waffles was the loudest one there. Brady loved every second of it.
He wanted to rescue pugs one day. He planned to own at least one pug for the rest of his life. He would have been thrilled to support this organization, and to help rescue pugs. We’re excited to do that on his behalf, in his name.
Why This Matters:
Brady didn’t get to live the life we imagined for him. But he changed ours, and he changed so many others. He showed us what it looks like to love without hesitation. To stay soft, kind, and loving in the face of unimaginable suffering. To choose kindness, again and again.
This fundraiser is our way of making sure his life continues to have impact.
How You Can Help:
If Brady’s story has touched you; if you believe in creating more space in this world for kids like him, if you want to play a role in helping carry his goodness forward, we would be so grateful for your support.
Every donation, no matter the size, helps us honor him in a meaningful way.
Organizer
