The last time I saw John was in November. He was in excellent spirits and really excited to see all of us, spend time together, and show us what living moment to moment really looks like. He was excited about his opportunity to take MariVi to a basketball game, and sit on the main floor and be treated like royalty. John was AS full of life, as I’ve ever seen him.
He knew his time remaining was short, but he was going to soak up every ounce of joy there was to soak up, and it was contagious. There was no fear, no worry, and no doubt or why me? coming from him.
It was an experience that left all of us joyous and breathless at the same time. It was one I am so glad I didn’t miss out on, because it taught me what leaving our earthly life can look like if we choose to walk the path of both faith and hope.
As I went to hug him goodbye, he handed me a stack of papers. He said, “you might want these for reference for my eulogy.” In my mind I laughed and thought, you want to make sure it’s perfect. I get it. John was a planner, and he planned every single minute of today. I’m sure he’s watching and hoping we do it right.
I said, “I promise I will do you justice.” He said, “I know you will, or I wouldn’t have asked.” John was nothing if not honest. I love you’s we’re exchanged and here we are in the blink of an eye, in a few months.
His moment to moment full living was a gift. A blessing. A way to show us how to do it. I keep thinking of his transition journey like a trail of bread crumbs he left for all of us to follow.
May we each have the wherewithal to do it a fraction as well as John did. His life and his death were nothing less than a miracle for all of us to watch, admire, and learn from. Always the teacher on a mission, John showed us the way.
John was an incredible author. His writing came from an otherworldly intellect that was a gift to his readers. It never mattered whether you agreed or disagreed with what John had to say, you always walked away understanding his perspective. As an author that’s all you can hope for, and he was a master at it.
He could weave a story from glass chards, and rubble, and make it look beautiful and glorious, much like how he walked through his cancer journey. He was a wordsmith that understood how to use language as his muse, and how to help others see his point of view.
The notes he gave me were surprising. It was nothing about his life or his accomplishments or his philosophy. It was his story about his faith journey. A theme throughout his life that he had a love/hate/love relationship with throughout. He seemingly dedicated his life to his faith journey and wrote about it so often. It was honest, raw, funny, and perfectly imperfect which is what made it so relatable to us all.
Many of us are born into a faith, never questioning but embracing what we are taught as children. This wasn’t John’s experience. He worked through his own struggles with it and shared it with us through his beautiful writing.
He asked me to read this piece to you all.
“All Things Considered” Read and “What a difference a Year makes” Read.
After John handed me this I waited to read it. I waited until a few days ago, because I knew if I had read them before his passing I would have questions. I would ask him why he wanted this part of his story shared today. I would want to know where he stood now, and if he was indeed a man of faith within this church that he was so unsure of all of those years ago.
As I was reading them I was once again struck by that same honesty that same sing song style prose that draws you in and shows you his point of view and has you asking questions about your own faith journey, and what’s it going to take to get there. He did indeed get there.
In these past few years it became clear that John started to write less about life’s complications, and he instead started to focus his writing on life’s simplicity. He used sports, religion, politics, and self as if it were all the same topic.
A virtual “how to keep it simple” guide became the mantra of his “Howling at the Moon” blog that reads more like prose.
He took on the most complicated issues, but he broke each of them down so anyone could see his reasoning. He was weaving a guide for us to read now, after he has passed to show us all how simple life really is.
It all became more and more about ease and flow, and less about questions with no good answers. He gave us a tour of simplicity this past year and longer, and showed us what really matters.
John taught us that in the end it was about time together, with people we love, time doing the littlest things. Just talking, and texting, watching a game, or enjoying a show. Simplicity became the theme and he liked it that way. He lit up the whole room when he spoke of Heath and Katy, Amelia and Zoey, Ivy, and Jarrod, Noel and Jackson. He was so incredibly proud of his family. He spoke of MariVi as his miracle baby. Sent straight from heaven. And Maria, Maria was his everything.
I know that it was always so important to both John and Maria that MariVi was raised with a close relationship with all of her siblings and with their mother Lee Howell as well. It was truly incredible to witness how evolved they all were, and how inclusive a family unit can be. Yet another lesson he together with Maria chose to teach us. Family is family… is family… the mantra of Maria and John as a couple and it never went unnoticed by the rest of us.
John was able to write almost to the end, and it was clear that he was a master at it, and wrote every last word he had to speak until just recently. He left us with all that he was, and nothing was left unsaid.
John was brave and faced his path head on, and took us with him. In this way, he will always leave us stronger, better, more enlightened, even more prepared for our own walk.
Perhaps even as we walk our own path, we will consider John’s way of walking, and know that by doing so he gave us a bit of a cushion, a softer landing, that leaves us with the thought that death and life, they are just one thing, they go together, and to embrace it all is to give his life and his passing the meaning that it so deserves.
What a strong and courageous message John left us all with. May we all be enlightened by our own faith journey, and remember him for his honesty and courage to walk this path first, and in his gentle way, leaving his strength behind.
