Life doesn't always pan out as expected. For Ryan Bennett, a UNM student who is graduating with a degree in accounting this semester, that statement rings true.
Bennett took all of seven years from the first time he stepped into a college classroom to finish his degree. The graduation will be a crowning achievement and honor, capping the pursuit of a degree which stemmed from a life-changing moment — the loss of his unborn child.
He said school was never his niche. He considered himself to be an average student and didn’t have much drive—at least early on.
Bennett said he began his first semester by eyeing an engineering degree, but quickly found out it wasn’t for him. After that, he tried his hand at exercise science. But that didn’t stick either.
On Dec. 14, 2013, when he was 22 years of age, Bennett received the news that he was going to be a father. His girlfriend, Pilar Saiz, was pregnant and about to graduate in the spring of 2014.
Bennett said he was ecstatic. It all became real for him — he was growing up.
“I was excited,” Bennett said about finding out his girlfriend was pregnant. “Just being a father was an exciting thing to me.”
With a child on the way, Bennett decided to put work at the forefront of his mind and school on the back burner, making a selfless sacrifice to support his family.
He was working at a bank and was offered a promotion, which he turned down. However, once he found out, he decided to drop school and apply himself to a full-time position at a bank, in order to support his future family.
But in April of 2014, things took a heart-wrenching turn.
His girlfriend went to her 20-week checkup appointment to make sure everything was going well with the pregnancy — it wasn’t.
Bennett and Saiz received the worst possible news that would-be parents can hear during the sonogram. The child had no heartbeat.
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“It was a routine thing,” he said about his girlfriend’s monthly checkup. “They lifted up (her shirt), did the little thing…and they were like, ‘There's no heartbeat…your baby is dead.’”
The burden was a lot to place on the shoulders of such a young couple. Bennett said he was paralyzed and couldn’t find the motivation to do anything. He was a lost soul.
“Oh man, that was an experience,” he said with a notch in his throat.
But then, something changed for Bennett — a moment he said he believed was a major turning point in his life. He said he heard a voice speak to him and it told him “it wasn’t the right time.”
“Maybe this happened for a reason,” he said. “That I wasn't meant to be a father just yet.
Bennett said he knew he had to go back to school — and not long after, he returned to UNM to finish what he had started.
“I just realized that it's not about me anymore, because life can change in an instant,” he said. “I learned that twice in a short amount of time (with) having a baby and then having it taken away.”
He said he decided right there in the office at the bank that he needed to get things together, buckle down and focus on school to get a degree.
And that's what Bennett did. He came back to pursue a degree in accounting from the UNM Anderson School of Management.
But achieving his goal, especially after he suffered such a devastating loss, was not easy. Classes were hard, but he discovered they could be fun too.
He said he didn’t allow challenges and struggles to hinder him from staying on track to set out and complete what he promised himself he would do.
Sharing his story is something Bennett said isn’t about him, rather it is to let others know that life is hard, but goals can always be achieved.
“There's not a lot of people I've talked to about it,” Bennett said about how often he discusses the tragic loss. “I don't even know what even encouraged me to share my story — I think it's just a lot of pain and unanswered questions you get when something like this happens. But I was able to turn that pain into something positive for myself.”
That positive can never be taken away from Bennett, as the class of 2017 will forever have his name attached to it.
Bennett said he would like to share one piece of encouragement to those who are struggling with finishing school because they experienced a personal loss.
“You can manage your pain in a healthy way,” he said. “You can take that emotion and channel it into something that's good for you.”
Matthew Narvaiz is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers women's basketball and baseball. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @matt_narvaiz.
