I am glad there is a God.  I am glad that God is in charge.  We need that.

No more than a week ago I was talking to my Aunt Barbara in Mississippi on the phone.  We were lamenting the circumstances of my son, Jarrett, and the fact that his sweetheart of six years was killed in a boating accident in West Virginia on July 4th this year.

I told her Some Things Just Don’t Make Sense.

Last night at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in New Albany, Indiana, Sarah Danielle Hutchinson’s name was called off during an All Souls Day Mass.  I know what the 4th of July meant.   Now it means something else to me.

I was preaching to the choir as I spoke to Aunt Barbara.  She knew it.  I knew it.  We didn’t say it.

The last time I saw my Uncle Durwood Hines, Aunt Barbara’s husband, was on March 10, 1988.  He was in the hospital in Jackson, Mississippi.  He had just had a biopsy of his brain.  When I saw him his head was completely bandaged.  I struggled to say something.  I told him he looked like he had a football helmet on.  He struggled to smile as he looked at me.  “I think I’ll have to be the waterboy.”  That was my last memory of Uncle Durwood.  Thanks be to God, I have many more.

Uncle Durwood died on April 18, 1988.  I was sitting in the paint stock room of the now defunct Sears store in Clarksville when my mother told me the news on the phone of her brother’s passing.  I regret that I did not make it to his funeral.  I don’t regret being by his bedside for one last conversation, however abbreviated it was.  For that, I feel blessed.

“Some Things Just Don’t Make Sense.”  That is what I told Aunt Barbara.  As I said that I was preaching to the choir.

My dear wife, Carrie, called me today as I was in the midst of conducting auditions for the school play of which I am in charge of at North Harrison High School.  That she was calling me at a time like this was a reason to make me nervous.

Carrie told me she was at the office door of the High School and could not get in.  She needed to talk to me.  I thought the worst.  Of course I did.  I could hear it in her voice.

I met  her downstairs.  She then told me that the Dad of one of her former students texted her to tell her that his son had passed suddenly this morning.  Phillip Johnson was 23.

Just an hour ago, I spoke with my friend Ross Schulz.  Oh my.  Ross is a great guy.  Wish all of you knew him.

In 2010, Ross wrote a story for the local paper.  It was about Phillip Johnson and his Make-A-Wish Foundation Moment.  Phil got many gifts from John Deere.  He was a fan of John Deere tractors.

I told Ross tonight that this story has stayed, laminated, in my cabinet for years.  That is a tribute to Phil and to Ross for being there when it counted.

This was my Philly Willy.  That is what I called him.  He came to our house many years ago for a visit.  He was taken with our sweet old dog, Luther.

We lost Luther in 2010.  This photo was taken a couple weeks before he finally gave it up.

In subsequent years, Phil would ask how Luther was doing.  I could not bring myself, in the presence of Phil’s fragility, to tell him Luther was gone.  I told Phil that Luther was fine and well.

I so remember a day when I was visiting Phil.  We were watching him play a computer game.  He paused.   Phil looked at me and said, “I love you, Danny.”  I told Phil I loved him too.

SOME THINGS JUST DON’T MAKE SENSE.

I was hired (for the first time) at Medora Schools in 1998.  I had an 8th grade student there named Aaron.  He was a pill.  I loved him from day one.  He was genuine.

One day, out by my car, as my trunk was open, he saw my set of golf clubs.  He asked if he could HOLD ONE.  He had never seen a set of golf clubs.

A portion Aaron’s 8th grade final exam is still close to this desk in Depauw, Indiana where I type these words now.  The details are too personal.

Aaron died in a motorcycle accident in Seymour.  He was 34.  Twenty years after our fun!  That is what I choose to remember.

Am I blessed?  Yes, I am.

I won’t get into that day at five years old; my elderly babysitter killed over on me.

Yes, that did happen.  Perhaps one day we can revisit that and more!

In the meantime, TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER AND….SPEAK THE RIGHTS!

Danny Johnson