Sometimes miracles can happen in the most unusual places. An NBA basketball game in April is not the first place a person would think of for something really important and significant to happen, but in this case it did. By all accounts Ryan Rodriguez is now your average 4 year-old child, chattering away and playing, but that wasn't always the case. You see, young Ryan was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder called Selective Mutism, and for the great majority of his first four years of life he would only say maybe one or two words at a time, even while all of the other preschoolers would chat away. Thankfully, that all changed one day while he and his father Izzy were watching an Orlando Magic game. "He sat there and kept going, 'Me, me, play, play," Izzy Rodriguez told "Good Morning America. "So I turn around and I do crazy things." Those crazy things were spending the 641.00 for two tickets to the next Orlando Magic game. Although it was either that or pay the mortgage, he knew that his son was more important and they usually "don't yell at you until after 30 days anyway." So this man, who with his meager auto mechanic salary has supported expensive speech therapy for his son, decided to go the next Orlando Magic game. When they got there and began getting settled in, something remarkable happened. "When we get there, he says, 'Me, play basketball, here?'" Rodriguez said. "So I look down and dropped to my knees and said 'What did you say?' He said, 'Me play basketball here?' I said, Yeah." After that little exchange between father and son that many take for so granted, the floodgates were opened and the little boy who before would only say one word at a time and NEVER say anything to his peers was talking almost non-stop through the whole game. "I'm thinking, OK, I'm dreaming. Or something happened, or maybe this is what he needed. [He] talked to me all the way home," Rodriguez said. "I talked to Karen on the cell phone crying all the way home." After the game, Izzy sent an email to the Orlando Magic staff telling them about his son. They were so impressed that they decided to buy him and his family tickets for the rest of the season and the one after that. Thanks be to God, The Orlando Magic, and this wonderful parent for helping this young boy come out of his shell and start communicating!
