Even With Son Gone, Life Goes On for Leiter : Angels: He pitches today, three days after the memorial service for nine-month-old Ryan.

Pitcher Mark Leiter was hugging his wife in the Anaheim Stadium parking lot Monday, his eyes flooded by tears, when he casually glanced down and saw that face.

It was Ryan, lying in the car with an oxygen tank hooked to his frail body, looking up at both of them.

Ryan smiled for five, six, perhaps even seven seconds. It was his way of letting them know, Leiter said, that he soon would be leaving.

“I was getting all choked up,” Leiter said Friday, recalling that afternoon before leaving on the Angels’ first trip of the season. “I told my wife (Allison), ‘That’s the last time I’ll see him smile. I don’t think I’ll see him again.’ ”

Ryan Alexander Leiter died a few hours later of Hoffmann disease, a child’s form of Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was nine months old.

“He passed away in my arms on opening day,” Allison Leiter said Friday. “I was always worried what it would be like. I feared the worst. But he looked so beautiful. He looked just like an angel.

“But can you imagine, of all days for him to go, it was on opening day. The birth of the baseball season.

“There had to be a reason for that.”

The Leiters had been preparing for Ryan’s death for the past 7 1/2 months. There is no cure for the disease, nor remedies to prolong life.

Ryan came down with pneumonia in Arizona and was nearly recovered, but the disease was stripping away his life. The last few days, he was not sleeping and his weight had dropped to about 14 pounds.

“I just didn’t think he was going to keep going on like he was,” Leiter said. “He just wasn’t happy at all the last day and a half. He wasn’t smiling and wasn’t breathing like he normally was. He wasn’t in pain. He just wasn’t comfortable.”

“I think he was just hanging on because my wife wouldn’t let him go. Maybe he saw the opportunity where I was gone, and there was so much going on, it was a good time for him to take off.”

Leiter, who makes his Angel debut today, won’t accept his son’s death. He still has difficulty understanding why it has happened. Yet, he also knows that his own family’s life must go on.

“I’ve never cursed or blamed God for any of this,” Leiter said. “There have been times through the winter where I’d be by myself in the car, and mentally not really being there, but I’d just kind of argue with him (God).

“I just wanted a reason. Not just for us, but for parents who love their kids and anyone who loses a loved one and how much it hurts inside. We just wanted to know why. Can’t there be a reason? If God sat down with you, and nobody would believe you anyway, so why not just tell me?

“I still don’t accept it. I live with it because I have to live with it. But I sure don’t accept the fact that I have to lose my son.”

Three days after the memorial service for Ryan, Leiter will try to deal with his emotions today when he starts against the Milwaukee Brewers. His family will be in the stands--with Allison and three-year-old Mark Jr. accompanying him on the trip--and they believe Ryan will be watching.

“Naturally, our hearts are broken and we’re sad,” Leiter said, “but it’s not good to just sit around a room and cry to each other. I wouldn’t have seen any good in going home for a week or whatever when you’re going to need the rest of your life to get over something like this.

“This, I think, will be the best for everyone.”