Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Things of Beauty: The Ripple of a Child's Kindness: How Riley's Gentle Ways Continue to Shake the World
The Ripple of a Child's Kindness: How Riley's Gentle Ways Continue to Shake the World
In this deeply moving episode, Craig sits down with Ziggy and Megan Gutensberger, founders of Riley's Ark, to share the profound story of their daughter Riley - a 12-year-old girl whose gentle acts of kindness created ripples that continue long after a tragic accident took her life.
Riley embodied the beauty paradox that small gestures can have extraordinary impact. Through notes of encouragement, spontaneous hugs, and simple acts of care, she demonstrated how "in a gentle way, you can shake the world." After spending 28 days in the hospital following a car accident, Riley's parents faced impossible decisions about life, love, and letting go.
What emerged from their grief was Riley's Ark (Acts of Random Kindness) - a organization that continues Riley's legacy through prom dress shops, Halloween costume drives, and "waves of kindness" for those in need. All events operate on a "pay what you can" basis, asking only that participants "be the ripple."
This episode explores the paradox of how beauty can emerge from tragedy, how love continues beyond physical presence, and how one child's sensitivity to others' needs created a movement of compassion that touches thousands of lives.
Dear listener, welcome to the best of things of beauty make me cry. If you follow Legit Parenting, you'll know that I end every episode with a story about the beauty that surrounds us. To summarize it basically, the goal is to live in the moment. Now, in every moment, you pause before you make your next decision and you first look backwards and figure out how did I get here, think about the choices you made in the past and what led you to where you are now. Then, before jumping into the future, that we often do is to analyze all the choices in front of you, all the things you could do in that moment. My hope is that you will be inspired to slow down, ignore the negativity and find the beauty in your life and in your family's life, the beauty that surrounds us all, and then etch it in your memory To our listeners. Today's show have your clean after writing, because it is truly just one of the most tragic stories, but also the most meaningful stories I have ever heard.
Speaker 1:Our guests Megan and Ziggy Gutensberger. In life, you have to keep moving forward. To be honest, I'm not sure I could make it through what Ziggy and Megan have made it through to the other side. I don't. It's just too much. So with that, I want to welcome Ziggy and Megan. They are the founders of Riley Arts and they are going to tell us their story. Welcome to the show, by the way.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if we could just start.
Speaker 3:I'd want to know more about your daughter, you know Riley. Riley was just a little energetic girl, kind of very focused. She was kind of always the starter of things. She shared a lot of personality that I have. She was very into making jokes, just pulling pranks.
Speaker 2:Favorite holiday was April Fool's.
Speaker 1:April Fool's, no doubt.
Speaker 2:That and St Patrick's Day, because the leprechauns would be great.
Speaker 1:The leprechaun right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she loved to set up little traps to catch leprechauns. She loved to set up little traps to catch leprechauns April Fools. There's still things we find amongst our house that she has. We have a salt shaker that we continually reuse and refill and on the top of it she drew a little drawing.
Speaker 2:She drew a picture of a little guy that she named Harry. That was the April Fool's joke. Like everything in our refrigerator got pictures of faces on it, and so the salt shaker wasn't in the refrigerator, but we continued to reuse it.
Speaker 1:We just refilled that salt shaker yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, about two or three years after Riley had passed away, megan was looking at her lamp that's next to our bed and on the inside of it Riley had taped a picture of a spider. Megan has great fears of spiders. She was just a girl that full of life, full of potential, and just touched people in many ways through her personality and her actions.
Speaker 2:Riley and I were shopping for running shoes. We had been both. Riley had a lot of Ziggy's characteristics, but she also had a lot of mine, and I get what I call itchy when I just can't like sit still and I, you know, I can't just be calm. And so it was a Saturday morning that I was very itchy, feeling like I needed to go do something. But I had a pile of to do's that I just didn't want to deal with. And Riley, meanwhile, was in our living room doing some crazy Pinterest workout where she was doing burpees to spell her name or something. And Ziggy just looked at us both and was, like you guys should go do a mommy-daughter date. Take yourselves and your extra energy somewhere else. So we went on a mommy-daughter date that day and it was a beautiful gift. In hindsight, I look back at that moment and the fact that I got to spend Ooh, didn't expect that one. Oh, we tell the story so many times. I don't usually have to have this happen, but take your time, yeah.
Speaker 2:You warned people. Um yeah, but we, we went shopping for running shoes. We did a whole bunch of things. We went to Target and went up the makeup aisle and we went to lunch and we ended up at a running store the running store in Parker that we always frequented and I was hemming and hawing over two different shoes.
Speaker 2:I literally one of my most vivid memories is looking down at my feet and I had two completely different shoes on and I was weighing the options, of which one really felt better and which color did I actually like. And Riley had said to me Mom, can I try on some shoes too? And in typical Megan snarkiness, I was like you can, but you're not getting them. And so she was messing around, trying on some shoes, and then the craziest thing happened All of a sudden. I looked up and there's a tsunami of glass coming at us. There was a woman in a parking lot who had a medical emergency and she passed out at the wheel, and when she did that, she hit the accelerator and drove through the store where we were shopping.
Speaker 3:She hit the accelerator and drove through the store where we were shopping. So they found Riley. Eventually ended up, you know, megan was pinned up against the wall, you know, trying to clear things out. Obviously there was a lot of kind of craziness that was going on and she was, you know, yelling for Riley and that was going on and she was, you know, yelling for riley and that. And then, um, and she could hear somebody yelling and she thought it was riley, and then she cleared out and her and the manager and owner of the store went through the back door and then they realized that they couldn't find riley.
Speaker 3:Um, the police officers went back in, um, and and um, they, they ended up finding, they ended up finding Riley. Uh, she was pinned under the car. Um, one of the police officers ended up actually picking, lifting the car up enough to to get her out and from there, um, they were able to revive her. Um, a lot of questions. At that point we didn't know a lot of different things. But then, you know, that's when we kind of transferred over to. We went to Parker Adventist first to stabilize Riley, enough to well, it was supposed to be flight for life to Children's Hospital, but it actually was snowing that day, so we drove. I jumped in the ambulance with Riley and they transported us to Children's Hospital.
Speaker 2:And there we spent 28 days with her in the hospital. We spent 28 days with her at Children's Hospital and everything like everything you can imagine from just sitting by her side and having people send us messages and ask to visit or do candlelight vigils at her school and things like that. But it was during that time that we got to, as parents, kind of step back and think about what our relationship with her was and what it could be, what it couldn't be, and things like that.
Speaker 3:You know she had received a traumatic brain injury from the car hitting her. She actually you know pictures and stuff hitting her she actually you know pictures and stuff of. Well, the time there was very interesting because you know she had sustained she had about a hundred hundred stitches that were in her head from where the car hit her, um, and they did a phenomenal job stitching her up and in that timeframe it actually healed fully and then she had broken her clavicle. Those are the only two injuries that you would have seen that she had sustained, but the but she had also received an anoxic injury and she had been. They estimated she'd been without oxygen for around 10 minutes when she was pinned under the car.
Speaker 3:Obviously I'm not a brain surgeon or a neurologist of any sorts, but I knew what he was explaining to me was not good and when he was done he did what I view as one of the kindest things that I've had a human do to me and he just gave me pure honesty and he had said Ziggy, he's like that little girl that you see in that bed is not the same little girl you knew before you got here.
Speaker 2:Somewhere, 24-ish days, 20-ish days, somewhere in there, we had a big conference with our care team, which included the neurologists and these various doctors and rehab people and nurses. We all just had to sit there and go through the process, but just talking with some of those doctors and having them be able to affirm to us that, yes, this was one of the most painful, craziest conversations that no parent should ever have to even entertain in their brain, but that they were encouraged by the way that Ziggy and I approached that and understanding that there were going to be hard things to come from that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of the neurologists would come in every morning, check her eyes, see if there was any movement, and the only reactions that they would get was when he would take his pen and he would pinch her finger with the pen, her thumb, and to essentially create pain to see what there was.
Speaker 2:We wrote each day in the hospital. We had started a Facebook page. It was just called Rally for Riley. At the time it was just where we could update, because the day after the accident Ziggy woke up to like 300 and something text messages alone. The gift that that gave us is every night we would sit down together and be like, okay, what are we putting out to the world? And part of what we agreed on early on is that we were going to be very honest and transparent about the journey.
Speaker 3:You hear it, you see it, you write it, and so at the time we didn't. I don't think we really knew at the time, but I think, looking back on it, it was extremely therapeutic for us.
Speaker 1:Tell us about how that came to fruition and tell the audience about Riley's arc.
Speaker 3:Riley's arc. The ripple of it started actually when we were in the hospital and I was trying to, you know, at that time, you know, after day five, I was really trying to figure out, like how are we going to navigate this Right? Like what are we going to navigate this right? Like what are we going to do?
Speaker 2:um, and how do you get megan to see reality?
Speaker 3:right and what he's saying right and I think that that's some of it too. Like you know how, how, how because, meg, I'm very much tell me black and white. If it's bad, tell me how bad it is if it's you. And, and I think that that's one of the things the staff at Children's Hospital knew, like they knew how to communicate to me and they knew how to communicate to Megan, and I think that that you know, that had you know, really helped us start our grief journey, and for me, that grief journey started a lot earlier than Megan.
Speaker 3:And one of the things on the campus at Children's Hospital in Aurora they have an area that is a little walkway and all the pavers are donated by each class graduating class. And there was a paver that was there one day when I was walking around and it was a quote from Gandhi and it said in a gentle way you can shake the world. And I just stopped and it just grabbed me and I knew that's 100% Riley. Like how are we going to be able to create a legacy to carry that on?
Speaker 2:And I think where some of that comes in. We didn't really touch on this, I don't think, in the earlier part of the story, but while Riley was in the hospital and with that Facebook page, people were reaching out and telling us things that she had done and she was 12 and a half. She didn't have a job. We are terrible about giving allowance Like that. Girl did not have a lot of resources at her fingertips I mean more than a lot of people, but still it's not like she just had money to throw around and support people. So she would support people in these very gentle ways. She would write the affirmation or the misspelled note, you know, and it was always misspelled but it was beautiful and well-intentioned she would run up and give you a giant hug, you know, tilt her head up and giggle and go you needed that and then run away.
Speaker 2:Um, and so she and she, she just did those little things and so when we saw that quote, that was kind of that moment, um, and it definitely hits a harder, but we both kind of stopped and we're like this is Riley In a gentle way. She was shaking the world and that is what we knew. We wanted to continue and it's interesting because in the years since I mean there was, I think, two or three years after she passed a teacher reached out and said Megan, you're never going to believe what I just found In the back of my drawer. I pulled it out, there's this note. I never knew and it was something Riley had stuck in there years before. And so it's just those things right, that intentionality of just making someone's day, and that's what we wanted to continue, and so that's what Riley's arc is all about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, you know we lost some of that the day that, you know, on May 26th in 2017, when Riley passed away.
Speaker 3:So we were, you know, bound and determined to find a way that we could kind of fill that void after she passed, kind of fill that fill that void after she passed.
Speaker 3:So so, yeah, we went shortly after oh, I think it was three weeks after, three or four weeks after Riley had passed away the Children's Hospital reached out to us and asked us if we would share our story with their staff, and and we didn't exactly understand exactly who we were going to be sharing the story to and we showed up and it actually ended up being like a national convention or a large convention, a leadership convention, and we were the last speakers.
Speaker 3:So there was all these executives and stuff from Children's Hospital that were at the at a large room at the Westin, so there's several hundred people that were there and we ran into the gentleman that we refer to as Patch, a neurologist, and and then, and then one of the chaplains, one of the chaplains and and they're like well, this is a little too early for you guys to be doing this stuff. What are you doing here and I joked with them. I was like, well, you know, we're more kind of rip the bandaid type of people and you know, and we knew at that point like we we wanted to share you know for ourselves, but also you know if it can impact somebody else and help them on their journey. So we did that and then we left there and immediately jumped on an airplane and we started laying the framework for Riley's Arc.
Speaker 2:Well and I think the important part is the Arc stands for Acts of Random Kindness, right. So Riley's Arc is about creating a big impact through small acts of kindness.
Speaker 1:And I love your T-shirt. Be the Ripple. I'd love to get one of those you got it yeah. So we started with a 5K.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we started with a 5K on Mother's Day.
Speaker 2:Intentionally to keep you sane. Yes, which was?
Speaker 3:intentionally done, mainly because we didn't know how we were going to navigate that day and I knew if Megan was busy and all that, things would be easier. And then we decided that we wanted to do a Halloween store, to do a costume drive and have recycled and reusable costumes for the community. And everything that we do with Riley's Art is community based because, you know, the community really impacted us and and we want you, you know we really we want that community to be as broad as possible. We wanted, you know we want everybody to to feel safe and welcome. So we really look at bringing everybody in as the community. All but one event is all pay as you can, and really the only thing that I ask is that you be the ripple. So the only payment we ever look for is for somebody to be the ripple. So just spread a little kindness.
Speaker 2:So we coordinated with some locals, elementary schools, and we got costumes and we ended up with like 800 costumes, I think, and it was not a beautiful setup or anything. People came in and they were trying on costumes and there was laughter and and joy and we just knew like, okay, these are the things that embody the spirit of riley and that's what we wanted to continue.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, and then, and then, shortly after that, megan and her mom were talking. They're like well, how can we do this with older kids? And that's how the prom dress store started was, well, you know, older kids kind of dress up for prom, and it's the very, very similar situation where you're spending a lot of money on a costume, on a costume or a dress for use for one night, right, like Halloween is is the kid version of that. So that's how the prom dress store started. And, um and again, it was well if we can get a hundred dresses. And then we ended up, well, we had them all stored in our basement the first year.
Speaker 2:Because it was 2020.
Speaker 3:Bummer, it was 2020. So we had gotten hundreds probably 600, 800 dresses, and I had them all hanging up on chains in our basement. And then we had a store in Castle Rock that the outlets were kind enough to donate and we set up there for a season, and then now we're moved over at a larger venue over at the Streets of South Glens.
Speaker 2:And it's been fun to watch that bubble up and change and impact the community. We talk about the ripple all the time, right, and now we're set up in Centennial we're not just Castle Rock or anything and we have people come from Wyoming and I mean there are people coming from long haul drives because they get to create this experience and everyone walks away. There's no questions asked.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you can pay whatever you can afford.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean what we call waves, waves of kindness. On our website, people can nominate individuals that could use a little bit of a hand me up in some way or some kind of act of joy. People in this world do care about that.
Speaker 2:Raise is meant to be a wave of kindness and some creation of joy. We don't pay mortgages, we don't pay electrical bills, but we get to do the fun things.
Speaker 1:Today, those acts of kindness for our kids are so in need. So there's a lot of fragile kids out there and there's a lot of kids who socioeconomically can't afford a prom dress. They can come to your place and offer $2, $5 and don't ask.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the beautiful things that's come from this too. We are overjoyed when somebody is just takes a dress without anything, but in many ways we've seen that empowerment that comes with someone being able to say I can't afford to buy a $300 dress, but here is $, yeah, and and it's just that, being that equal exchange of things, that yeah I think as a society, if we address and and acknowledge grief more, instead of some of these taboos of like don't bring that up, because that's going to make them sad and it's like grief is just not one emotion, it's lots of emotions.
Speaker 1:Lots of emotions, and you don't just do it one time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so the thing is with grief and kids. He's still, his mind's still growing.
Speaker 2:We were intentional about just trying to be real about the whole process.
Speaker 3:Riley was his best friend. She was the starter of everything. She was the instigator.
Speaker 1:And Riley was 95% of his life, and so he's had to spend this time really figuring out his own identity. He had the normal developmental process plus the loss of his sister at the same time, and that's a rough go yeah. And he's a lot of resiliency.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he's doing a great job with it. We're fortunate he leans on both of us for different things.
Speaker 3:One of the great things about Megan and I's relationship and as close as we've gotten through this process is really has allowed Tanner an avenue to. I think he's doing really well. Like Megan said, it hasn't been roses and suns. You got to work through the you know, work through the tough parts. I mean you know there was. I'm sure I've told Tanner multiple things that a parent shouldn't be telling their son on thing you know, and get caught up in the emotions of it. But I think one of the things that I think we did well as a family is we all gave each other grace when we know we're grieving in some way.
Speaker 1:People think it should go away and it doesn't.
Speaker 3:No, I mean it doesn't. I mean, you know, grief is essentially just love, where you don't have the physical person there to spread it to. So there's just a void there, monotically, yes.
Speaker 1:Ziggy, maggie, it is just so amazing. I said to Lily I've got to get him on the podcast and I'm so thankful and joyful that we're able to do that and to spend more time with you. You really are just truly amazing people and I think there's a book in there for the two of you, for other parents for sure.
Speaker 2:It's a thing yeah.
Speaker 3:It's sitting on a computer. I bet it is.
Speaker 1:But it needs to be published.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you very much.