Ryan, We Hardly Knew You, VIPs Mourn

First Lady Barbara Bush, Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh and pop star Michael Jackson were among more than 1,000 mourners at the Wednesday funeral of Ryan White, who was eulogized in an emotional, 35-minute service as the youth who “humanitized” AIDS.

The Gothic-style Second Presbyterian Church could not accommodate all who had come to honor White, who died Sunday at age 18. Many who had stood in a 40-degree drizzle for more than an hour had to be turned away.

“Ryan and his family always believed there would be a miracle, that God would heal Ryan right here on Earth,” said the Rev. Ray Probasco, a Methodist minister from Muncie, Ind., who once was youth minister at White’s church in Kokomo, Ind.

The miracle did not happen. White died at Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Medical Center of the complications of AIDS after seven days on life-support systems.

But, Probasco told the congregation: “I believe God gave us (a) miracle in Ryan.”

The youngster had captured the hearts of the nation during his battle with AIDS, which he contracted as a 12-year-old receiving treatment for hemophilia.

Many of those waiting outside could not explain exactly why they had come to White’s services. There were young women with babies in arms, and elderly people for whom the effort was a physical ordeal. Some in the crowd were people with AIDS.

White’s courage in going public with his disease, then in taking on the school near Kokomo that barred him because he had AIDS--and winning readmission--touched the ordinary and the famous.

Jackson, at whose Santa Barbara ranch White was often a guest, sat next to White’s mother, Jeanne, in the first pew. Mrs. Bush sat just in back of them.

The pallbearers included rock star Elton John, television talk-show host Phil Donahue, and Howie Long of the Los Angeles Raiders, as well as three of White’s school friends.

John, who was at White’s bedside during his final illness, sang “Skyline Pigeon,” to his own piano accompaniment during the funeral. The lyrics tell of a bird flying away from captivity to a better life.

White often had said he was not afraid to die, that he knew he was “goin’ to a better place.”

Another emotional moment occurred when 12 members of the girls’ choir from White’s school, Hamilton Heights High, in nearby Cicero, Ind., stood just above the open coffin, linked hands and sang: “ . . . I’ll be at your side forever more. That’s what friends are for. . . . “

White’s body, dressed in the gear he liked--a stone-washed, blue jean jacket, red T-shirt and bronze, mirrored sunglasses--rested in an open coffin covered with a blanket of red and white roses.

Probasco said of White: “There was never a day when Ryan was not in pain,” yet “he struggled to live life as an ordinary kid.”

“It was Ryan who first humanitized the disease called AIDS,” Probasco continued. “He allowed us to see the boy who just wanted more than anything else to be like other children and to be able to go to school.”

In a gesture of healing toward Kokomo, which has been singled out as a bastion of bigotry for its treatment of Ryan, he said: “There was never a person who knew Ryan who could ever hate him. They hated the disease, just as Ryan did.”

Through the courage of Ryan, he added: “We saw the boy and the disease, and they were not the same.”

White was buried at a private ceremony at Cicero Cemetery in the hometown that he and his family adopted--and that welcomed them with open arms--when they fled Kokomo.