Most of us, I think, live with the utter uncertainty of
\nhow long we’ll be alive in our current bodies. I think
\nour default, unless or until we’ve been diagnosed with
\nsomething fatal, or reach our late 90’s, is to pretend
\nthere’s no deadline.<\/p>\n
Then, for most of us, there’s a major medical flurry of
\ndesperate measures toward the end in which we, and\/or
\nour friends and family, mightily resist the inevitable.<\/p>\n
My dear friend and next door neighbor John chose the
\npath less traveled. Already on home dialysis and the
\ntransplant list when his cancer diagnosis came, he
\ndecided against surgery. It would have meant spending
\nthe rest of his life in the hospital.<\/p>\n
Instead, he decided to spend his remaining few months
\nat home. On the July 4 birthday he knew would be his
\nlast, he and his friends created “Johnstock,” our own
\nversion of that historical event in the 60’s, complete
\nwith live bands in the big field. He sang Arlo
\nGuthrie’s Motorcycle Song on stage–in full leather,
\nthen rode around in his golf cart so he could hug each
\nof his “400 closest friends.”<\/p>\n
-> http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ylUnXMF1ZyY<\/a><\/p>\n We left the stage up, and it became a weekly ritual to We all knew that John had decided that when the pain He went out with fireworks in the wee hours of January I’m looking at my life, and what I’ve been making Wow. Thank you, brother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of us, I think, live with the utter uncertainty of how long we’ll be alive in our current bodies. I think our default, unless or until we’ve been diagnosed with something fatal, or reach our late 90’s, is to pretend there’s no deadline. Then, for most of us, there’s a major medical flurry of… Continue reading John<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-healing","category-love-and-relationships","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ngather at John’s to sing, play music, and mostly to
\nlove one another and this man who had given so much to
\nall of us.<\/p>\n
\noutweighed the joy, he would choose a date and go with
\ngrace. (It’s legal where we live.)<\/p>\n
\n17.<\/p>\n
\nimportant, with new eyes. I can’t begin to describe how
\nmuch richer my life suddenly feels, with John in it in
\nthis new way. All I can say is, <\/p>\n