Kentwood, Mich. – For weeks, the young man sat at the young woman’s bedside, pouring his heart out to her, praying that she would recover from her injuries. It never occurred to him that she might not be the woman he loved.
But she wasn’t.
Laura VanRyn was already dead, already buried – and nobody knew it.
At an emotional memorial service Sunday for VanRyn, 22, of Caledonia, Mich., her boyfriend, Aryn Linenger, poured his heart out again, telling 2,300 mourners that the bizarre identity switch that allowed those closest to VanRyn to believe they were tending to her in the hospital seemed like a cruel joke.
“There’s been many times in these past couple days where I’ve been mad at God, and I questioned how he could allow this to happen to me,” said Linenger, 25. “Like it was the biggest trick he’s ever played on me in my life.”
A misidentification at the scene of a crash April 26 along Interstate 69 near Marion, Ind., resulted in a survivor, 19-year-old Whitney Cerak of Gaylord, Mich., being tagged as VanRyn. A resemblance between the two – students at Taylor University in Upland, Ind. – along with Cerak’s bruised and swollen face, allowed VanRyn’s family and friends to believe it was her as they cared for her first in a hospital and then later in a rehabilitation facility.
Meanwhile, Cerak’s parents buried VanRyn, believing she was their daughter. The mistake was learned last week when Cerak identified herself to hospital staff. VanRyn remains interred until exhumation.
Linenger brought many to tears in the crowd at the memorial service at Kentwood Community Church, describing how he sat by Cerak’s hospital bed, walked her around in a wheelchair and lay in her bed beside her. He and VanRyn had been dating for three years, he said.
“I saw her hands, her feet and her complexion, and I can’t believe it wasn’t her,” he said. “I pray that no one would ever have to go through the pain that I have gone through here – that when death comes, you won’t be tricked.”
