My Grandma, Alma Bartlett Johnson, suffered a terrible stroke just a few days before her birthday, on September 30th, 1997. My Grandpa decided since she was only being kept alive by machines, that he would wait until her birthday(September 30th), to turn the machines off, and let her pass. The doctors told the family that once the machines were off, she probably wouldn’t survive 15 minutes. Well, that’s not what happened at all! Not only did she live more than 15 minutes, but she lived all the way until October 4th(my birthday), 5 days later, with no food, no water and no machines, at a hospice care facility.
I learned 3 very important lessons through the most emotionally devastating event I had lived through up to that point in my life.
1. Life is short, and if you don’t fully experience while you can, someday when you look back on your life, you will regret it.
2. Life can and will challenge us in ways we are prepared for, and ways we are not prepared for. For that reason, and this is easy to say, but also important to try to do- Take life as it comes. Let the small things go, and try to embrace the big things that happen that change our lives, because a lot of things in life are completely out of our control.
3. If you have dreams, follow them! For some reason their are a lot of people in this world that are just downers, haters, naysayers, or whatever else you want to to call them, and they will only give you the negative side of things, or say something isn’t possible, or why you can’t do something, but you know what? To hell with them! Many of the world’s greatest discoveries and inventions would have never happened if the dreamers of the world would have listened to all of the people who told them something couldn’t be done.
“Where there is a will, there is a way.” Alma Bartlett Johnson
If you are reading this now and some of what was said in this message resonated with you, I don’t know who will read this, or what you may dream up and want to do, but I say…..GO FOR IT!!!
Sincerely,
Michael “MJ The Terrible” Johnson
