I [Heart] My Life

The Time I Took My Mother & a Shotgun to My Father's Funeral

The afternoon before my father's memorial service I still hadn't written my speech.

I'd been thinking about it off and on all week, but I'd been busy with other things: lining up the other speakers, writing the programs, coordinating with the mortuary staff re flowers, food, audio / visual, room capacity -- in a lot of ways it felt similar to my conference producing work prior to my dad's diagnosis. And that was comforting. I slid the role on like a glove.

But by the afternoon of the day before the memorial service I knew I needed to find a quiet spot and put pen to paper. I have always loved going up on the roof at my parents' house. I loved how stark the roof was: shingles with a few pipes poking up, a brick chimney, and a TV antenna. The view out is breathtaking, and the tree tops are right there!

So I escaped to the roof. A beer in my cleavage, a pen in my teeth, a pad of paper under my arm as I scaled the ladder.

A few deep breaths, and then the words began to flow... The following is the speech I read the next afternoon to those assembled for my father's memorial.

The memories fade in and out now, like radio stations on a cross country road trip. Static gives way to clarity. Bits of song, a smell, a feeling, a memory of a laugh -- sharp, then fading... All of it out of context, and thus each beautiful in their distinctness.

...

It's 1994.

My parents are side-by-side on the couch across the blue shag carpet. I'm facing them, fired up. I'm upset over the death of our second elderly horse. First Missy, then Chewy. Now we have just Rosie: a beautiful white a copper-colored Arabian-Appaloosa mix. A lone horse. A horse without a herd. An old horse.

I'm 17. I'm awash in sorrow for her loss, imagining what it would be like to be the last one standing. I'm passionately suggesting we put this lonely -- though otherwise healthy -- horse out of her misery.

My mom looks from me to my dad beside her and says, "If I go first, watch out for April! She'll be coming for you with a shotgun!"

...

The memory fades to static...

A new memory comes into focus...

...

It's a couple weeks ago. My dad and I are at his kitchen table, eating scrambled eggs. He's thin, weak, tired. I'm telling him the horse story. I'm nervous it won't go over well.

When I get to the "watch out for April!" part, he nearly chokes on his eggs. Bits fly out of his mouth. His laugh is clear and beautiful.

...

The memory fades...

...

Now it is last week: the day I take him to the hospital. We are in his car. He's in the passenger seat, his eyes closed. Every turn, every bump, he moans. I'm desperate to help him. We are fairly flying down Black Road -- the hospital like gold at the end of the rainbow.

I'm thinking: God! Good thing his eyes are closed! He'd never approve of this speed!

Just then, out of the blue, his eyes still clamped shut, he says with a smirk, "I hope you're timing this."

...

The memory fades...

...

My grief is like these memories: in and out like the tide. My sadness comes in waves. Like a punch in the gut, the memories come unbidden. Everything reminds me of him. Grief washes over me. But the memories comfort me, too. I don't want to forget.

I'm so grateful we learned in these last six months to hug often. To say I Love You every single day. To lean on each other.

But there is one thing I never got the chance to tell him:

Fifteen minutes, Dad.

Fifteen minutes from your house to the hospital.

New. World. Record.

 

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A Daughter Pens Her Dad's Obituary: George Herbert Johnson, GHJ Tree Farm

A Daughter Pens Her Dad's Obituary: George Herbert Johnson, GHJ Tree Farm

George Herbert Johnson

November 15, 1952 – September 5, 2014

 George Herbert Johnson, 61, passed away peacefully on Friday, September 5^th, at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, surrounded by his three children, April Johnson Stearns, Dale Johnson, and Kyle Johnson, and his two brothers, Milo Johnson and Craig Johnson.

 

It is a tremendous sadness and honor that I, April, now write his obituary. When my father was diagnosed with Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer this last spring, I was with him in the doctor's office. It was the worst day our family has ever faced, and yet even then my father acted with his customary grace and strength. After we left the doctor's office, we stood in the parking lot. I was stunned, struggling to keep it together. He pulled me to him in a big bear hug, comforting me when I should have been comforting him.

 

There is so much to say about my dad's last months, weeks, minutes, but I don't want his life to be summarized by the cancer. The truth is, his life was absolutely full. Bursting! This was a man who squeezed as many minutes as he could out of each day. When most of us barely roll of out bed with enough time to get to work, he was up doing work around the house before putting on his work clothes. When most of us were turning on the TV and relaxing at the end of the day, he was pulling his jeans on and heading outside to work on his farm until sunset, or even after. It was the land that he loved: being out in it, on it.

 

But I digress.

 

My father, George, was born on November 15^th, 1952 in Binghamton, New York, and was the second of four sons of Milo and Evelyn Johnson, known locally as the couple behind the Peacock Tree Farm. Raised and educated first in New York and then in the Bay Area, George graduated from Los Gatos High School in 1970. It was here that he met his wife, Grete Hafstad. They married on a rainy afternoon, February 1^st, 1976, in Los Gatos, and honeymooned in Lake Tahoe. Soon after they moved to what would become their life-long home on Skyline Blvd – a place they named with their matching initials: GHJ Tree Farm. I was their first child, and I was born in March 1977. In 1980 and 1983, respectively, their sons were born: Dale and Kyle.

 

It may come as a surprise to know he proudly obtained his Private Pilot's License in 1972!

 

George followed in his father's footsteps, working at IBM by day, and in the Christmas Trees on Skyline by evening and weekends. At Christmas, he took some of his trees to the Peacock Tree Farm to sell, and later opened his own choose-and-cut Christmas Tree Farm (GHJ Tree Farm), which he operated as late as last year. He also cultivated an orchard of apple trees, primarily (with some pears, nectarines, peaches, cherries, and persimmons thrown in, too). He was extremely proud of these apples, and sold and shared them generously over the years. Many knew him for his annual apple cider-making parties.

 

Soon after moving to Skyline, George joined the volunteer fire department, which he ultimately captained for 32 years. In 2007 he retired from his long career at IBM (first in the machine shop, then in procurement), and in 2010 he retired from the South Skyline Volunteer Fire Department, Company 21.

 

When I was growing up, if he wasn't at IBM, on a fire call, or in the orchard on a tractor or up a ladder, he was often found cycling with my mother, or doing any of the numerous activities of parenthood. He was the best dad to us kids that we could ever hope for. He was a true friend and mentor to us.

 

George is survived by his daughter April Stearns and her husband Joseph and George's granddaughter Nia of Santa Cruz, CA; his son Dale Johnson and his partner Amy Mecchi and George's granddaughter Ella of Coarsegold, CA; his son Kyle Johnson and his wife Whitney, and George's grandchild on the way of Coos Bay, OR. He is also survived by his brother Milo Johnson and his wife Jill of Palo Cedro, CA; and his brother Craig Johnson and his wife Ramona of Colorado Springs, CO. He is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews, aunts and cousins.

 

George was preceded in death by his wife Grete; his father Milo A. Johnson; his mother Evelyn Herbert Johnson; and his younger brother Jerome Johnson.

 

This Saturday we will gather to honor and remember the life of our father, brother, uncle, friend, mentor, neighbor, and grandfather, George. We'll come together to remember the life and times of this extraordinary man who touched so many with his kind, gentle spirit.

 

September 13, 2014; 12pm

Lima Family Mortuary

466 N. Winchester Blvd. (cross street Newhall)

Santa Clara, CA

 

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (www.pancan.org).

Picture credit: Long-time friend, companion firefighter, and hiking buddy, Arnie Wernick, took the portrait  of George. 

Dipping a Toe in the Hospice Chapter: Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer

Wow, you look really good!

People (well-meaning to be sure!) say this to my dad all the time. Later, we discuss this: What does it mean, exactly? What should a stage IV cancer patient look like? Should he be more bald? Even more thin, weak? Less dressed? Less up-right?

I'm frustrated & I'm here to rock the idea that what we look like on the outside says very much at all about what is going on on the inside. Especially when it comes to the sometimes long process of dying.

Twelve days ago, a nurse sat in my dad's living room. She was there because I'd called her.

A couple days earlier, when we went in for Round 9 of the chemo, the oncologist had said that George should take a break: he was weak, had lost a significant amount of weight, and was needing to lie down most of the day due to the pain in his abdomen -- all this was discussed while the patient perched on the edge of the exam table looking, for all intents and purposes, very much like he's always looked: tan, fit, a twinkle in eye. Sure, perhaps his eyes were a little more recessed, maybe his shoulders a little sharper under his t-shirt, but that same salt-and-pepper-ed, handsome guy with a quick smile. Is this what it looks like when the doctor says, Go home and rest. I have nothing for you right now. We'll talk in a couple weeks..?

We went home with mixed emotions. One the one hand, I was relieved for the break in chemo. It is hard to drive someone who is feeling horrible to a place that will fill his body with poison, knowing that even if it is affecting the cancer, it is also going to leave him weaker and sicker. What's the return on investment? On the drive down the hill, we might chat and laugh. Maybe a little more of that at the beginning of the infusions as we settle in, but by the end, he'd be laid back with his eyes closed. "Afraid to move," he'd say. I'd then drive him home silently, avoiding any potholes, trying to get up Black Road both as quickly as possible, and with as little carsickness as possible on the hairpin turns.

But -- did this mean our options for treatment were dwindling? If so, how did we feel about that?

When I brought up the notion of Hospice care I may as well have shouted a four letter word. He was stunned. He resisted. "I'm not there yet," he said. I pushed, as gently but as persistently as I could. I wanted support, information. I needed something more than I'd received from the oncologist, or the once-a-month support groups at Stanford Hospital. I needed to know where on the map of stage IV cancer we are. I needed to know that when I told someone he was in pain, that they would listen. And when I said, "He's not eating!" someone would be there to say gently, "I hear you. I know. It sucks, but this is part of the process." 

I found that with Hospice. I know it was scary for my dad the day the nurse sat in the living room that first time. We talked about death and dying. We talked about treatment options possibly dwindling. We talked about how hard this is on us, the survivors. We talked about final wishes.

It was hard, but it was also a lifeline. Finally we were discussing what was happening right in front of us!

And that very night, a pharmacy delivery driver showed up in the driveway at 8pm with a bag of medicines. A "comfort kit," they called it. Some medicines we just store for down the road, but others were to be taken right away: something for pain, something for appetite stimulation, something for constipation. All these things I'd been anguishing over and trying to get help from the oncologist, and finally someone had not only heard our concerns, but had responded that very day!

So, we are now in the Hospice chapter of this journey. It may be temporary (we'll evaluate treatment options again next week), or it may be permanent. I don't think my dad is dying this week or next. But I know that as long as he is on Hospice, we'll have compassionate care along the way, no matter how short or long the road is. I'm glad we didn't wait till his final days to get this kind of support, for him or for my brothers and me.

...

I've thought a lot lately about how similar dying and childbirth are. It fits, right? That entering and exiting this place might be symbiotic? In so many ways I feel like I'm serving as my dad's doula: I'm here to hold space, provide comfort and information, to do light housekeeping and cooking, to make sure the dog is cared for, and that the family knows what's going on. I can't take away the pain, but I can hold his hand -- or simply be in the house, bearing witness. I can hopefully be the difference between pain and suffering...

And all of this is building toward a day when the pain is no more.

Is this what a Hospice patient looks like?? Taken 8/19/14

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