A rebellion against the power of death, written as a tribute to two important people in my life who have left this existence in recent Decembers.

Very few people, if they are honest, harbor the desire expressed in the title of this post. Most people live as if they expect to never die, and, even when forced to think about the inevitable, wish their accomplishments and good deeds to be remembered. Even those who are in such pain and despair that they want to die, usually do not wish to be forgotten. If nothing else, they want their pain to be remembered.

This post will be more personal than most of my posts. It is inspired by today’s date–the fourth anniversary of the morning I found my oldest son dead in his bed–by Jamie Patten’s article Living Your Dash, and by a song, “All of Our Tomorrows,” which popped up on my You Tube about two weeks ago, and which I have listened to probably more than a hundred times since, weeping–though the song really beautifully expresses our hope.

The underlying idea of Jamie Patten’s article is that, in reporting the lives of those who have died, it is customary to report their whole life as nothing but a dash between their birth and death dates. This well illustrates being forgotten, at least as a real person. But she then points out that many have lived a very good dash, if we look at the details, and that we also can live a very good dash.

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Elnathan Bruce Johnson, 1979-December 10, 2018

You were my first, the beginning of my strength.  Right after you were born, you were handed to me for a moment, before you were given to your mother and then  transferred to an incubator.  I remember being so afraid I’d accidentally break you!  You looked at me, and captured me instantly.

You had a fairly hard life, with many obstacles to overcome.  You were born purple, with your umbilical cord wrapped around your neck three times, and your doctors were surprised you survived the next few days.    You were also born with a cleft lip and palate, which took two surgeries to correct. You had developmental delays, were slow to walk, slow to talk, and had to be taught to crawl instead of scooting. You had various learning disabilities through your school years, and a speech impediment that took years of therapy to work out.  But you were persistent and nearly always cheerful.  You very seldom let your problems get you down. You were cheerful, even when things looked bleak and I was gloomy.  And you overcame your problems.  You graduated from Highland Park High School, never giving up, and later graduated from Wichita Technical Institute with an AA in HVAC.  We were very proud of you persisting to earn this degree, even though you could never get a firm in that field to hire you due to your disabilities.

You were a happy, gentle child, very empathetic and concerned about the feelings of others, even as a young child.  All of these traits continued into your adult life.  You were often the one who encouraged us when we were down, helped the rest of us with transportation, and helped us with repairs around the house.  

You were almost born making car noises.  Cars always fascinated you.  You learned to drive in high school, and your first few jobs were delivering pizza.  After you found you were unable to find a job in HVAC, you went to a trucking school and got a class A CDL, planning to drive an over-the-road truck.  But one of your disabilities—weak knee joints—prevented you from meeting trucking company physical requirements.  So you went back to driving school buses, a job you had done for a few years before you went to WTI. You drove school buses for the rest of your life.  You loved your work, loved the people you worked with, and even loved the kids. It was a perfect job for you, one in which you could combine driving and empathy. And many of your kids loved you too, as we heard from their parents after you were gone.  We will not in this life know the full extent of your influence.

 When Kansas Central School Bus took over the USD 501 transportation contract in the Fall of 2018, and offered pay even during academic breaks and the availability of unemployment compensation during the summer for drivers that did not get  summer routes or charters, we all thought you had found your place in life.  You had a well-formed plan to move out into a trailer of your own the next February and you were working long hours driving school bus routes in Paola to save up for it.  Then, suddenly, all of those plans and hopes died.

You knew Jesus.  I cannot identify any single crisis event as the time you were saved, though I understand there were several times you prayed with your grandparents. But from my observation, your faith was a slow growth process, starting when you were about 5 or 6.  You were around it, and you learned it, from us, from churches we were in, and probably more than anything from your large and fairly cohesive maternal grand-family—grandparents, aunts and uncles who all love Jesus, and have children, your peers, who also follow Jesus.  We have no doubt of your faith.

When I found you lifeless four years ago today, a piece of me died—even though I know you are still with me in Christ and I will see you again.

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Royal A. Power, 1929-December 27, 2020

You are the most consistent Christian man I have ever known. I know–because you told me–that it wasn’t always that way. You were a young adult, married, with children, before you came to Christ. But that was 20 years before I met your daughter, and you. In the 45 years I knew you, I never saw any deviation from your faith. None. None at all.

In February 1978, I married one of your daughters. We both had serious imperfections–me much more than my wife–but she bore, and still bears, the imprint of your faith. It has been growing throughout the years we have been married. Because of some rather severe problems in my life, the first 15 years of our marriage was very difficult. But we stayed together, and you were a big part of that, partly through your presence and counsel, and partly simply because of your example. You married, and, as far as I could ever tell, never thereafter looked around or looked back. When you left our sight, you had been married for 72 years–which is a huge accomplishment.

It would be normal to talk a lot about your professional accomplishments as an engineer–working mostly for Boeing, with a few years at Cessna in the middle of them. And you did design major structural systems on some older aircraft that are still in service. But that was never the focus of your life. Jesus was.

All of your four children came to Christ early in their lives, and all of them raised their children–your grandchildren–in church and in Christian homes. Most of your grandchildren know Christ, and that includes Elnathan and all of my three living sons. You played a very large role in my sons’ faith.

You were my greatest mentor. I never told you this during your lifetime, because I didn’t fully recognize it until you were gone. Thank you!

Until the last few years of your life, when dementia robbed you of many of your abilities, you were always active in your church and in service to others. I remember that you retired from the aircraft industry when you did partly to allow you to give more time to your volunteer position as maintenance man at Victory in the Valley. That was just the way you were.

Even when your mental state had deteriorated so far that you could not remember much or think clearly, you still remembered Jesus. You were praising him to the end.

And I know you still are.

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The Last Word

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