From time to time, it’s important to take stock of where we’ve been and how we’ve grown. In that spirit, as December’s light wanes, I look back over the fence at 2023.
Here are ten important things–in no particular order–I’ve learned (or been reminded of) this year. Each is connected to one or more blog posts I wrote in the past twelve months.
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#1: Creative opportunities are rare butterflies; grabthem when they appear.
#2: Music transforms the human heart with joy and hope.
#3: Cats are resourceful, cuddly, and conniving characters.
#5: Trees keep us rooted to the places we love most.
#6: Good poetry simply IS; no explanations are required.
#7: My husband is a sweet guy, who really knows his movies.
#8: Carol Burnett is a national treasure and a kind human being.
#9: You can’t replace your mother or father, but you can remember them fondly.
#10: We all need a sense of community to connect and nourish our souls.
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Since 1981–the beginning of the epidemic–about 40.4 million people have died of HIV/AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Another 39 million were living with HIV at the end of 2022.
These are staggering numbers, especially when you consider the emotional and economic ripple effect across all the families and loved ones of the victims, who have suffered along the way.
Tonight–on World AIDS Day–I will join other members of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus at the Parsons Center in Phoenix. We will sing as part of a vigil that will remember those lost … and provide encouragement for those who live with HIV every day.
We will be surrounded by the quilts you see here–just a sampling of those created in the 1980s and 1990s–which pay tribute to victims of this horrible disease.
Ironically, this is also the space where we rehearse every Tuesday night, as we continue to prepare for our holiday concert, December 16 and 17 at the Herberger Theater, and a weekend of holiday musical fun and inspiration.
Still today, the quilts prompt a sense of sadness and reverence for lives snuffed out. For people we will never know and never meet. For people we loved and lost. For the beauty they brought and the art they never created.
From my spot on the back row of the tenor two section, I captured fellow members of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus–surrounded by AIDS quilts–rehearsing on November 28, 2023.
Thirty Thanksgivings have come and gone. You wouldn’t recognize the world now. It’s not the one you left on November 26, 1993–much less the country you helped defend during World War II.
Despite some steps forward, life in 2023 is far more complicated, contentious, and fragile for most people.
Nonetheless, I count myself as one of the lucky ones. Thankful to be alive. Thankful for the love of family and friends. Thankful to remember you.
I met Tom about three years after you died. In my thirties, I didn’t imagine this sense of companionship and contentment in my later years … able to marry another man with a similar worldview and creative disposition.
Nor did I imagine living and writing in the warmth of the Sonoran Desert. Creating a life far outside the bounds of the Midwest existence I called home for nearly sixty years.
Over the past three decades, I’ve often reflected on your life, your troubles, your good intentions.
Whenever Tom and I watch the film, I Never Sang for My Father, I am reminded of the deep and treacherous waters fathers and sons navigate together.
We had our share of those moments, but I don’t see a huge resemblance between our relationship and the conflicts facing the two lead characters–frail father (Melvyn Douglas) and his writer son (Gene Hackman)–who never find common ground or the language to make their relationship whole.
There is a profound line in the movie that resonates and always leaves me in tears.
“Death ends a life. But it does not end a relationship, which struggles on in the survivor’s mind toward some resolution, which it may never find.”
Thirty years later, I feel at peace as I recall our relationship in some unnamed, spiritual way. I feel it on certain occasions with my sons. Or when Tom and I commiserate over our personal losses.
Or as I consider my book of poems, which I published earlier this year. Or when I sing on stage with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus and sense a ripple of emotion charging through my heart and lungs.
I can imagine how proud you would be to see how far I’ve come. You were always the first one to stand and applaud when I sang in high school and college. Thank you for that.
I never told you that I understood your struggle to be heard, even when your depression caused me pain. I observed both your successes and failures–your hopeful exuberance, love of family, health challenges, and bouts of unhappiness.
They have shaped my odyssey as a writer and given me greater compassion and empathy for the plight of the disenfranchised.
In 2023, I live about fifteen hundred miles west of St. Louis, far away from your grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. So, I won’t be able to visit your marble slab today, but this letter is better.
Rest assured–long after your final breath the day after that big meal with your sisters on Thanksgiving 1993–our sometimes-messy-sometimes-sweet bond still exists.
We will be father and son forever. That will always matter to me. Because I still remember.
Love, Mark
My father’s final resting place at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery south of St. Louis.
On a regular basis, all of us encounter unexpected small and large obstacles.
One day, they may be as fixable as a “low tire pressure” warning light that illuminates on the dashboard.
The next, something far more unimaginable, unexplainable and unrepairable. Like learning of the apparent suicide of a forty-three-year-old friend, who seemed to embody the definition of vitality.
It was simple to stop at Discount Tire to ask an attendant to increase the air pressure in our tires. (The cooler desert temperatures must have deflated them.)
It will take much longer–time, space, and reflection–for Tom and me to process Chad’s demise.
I’ve often thought that resiliency is one of the most important human characteristics to cultivate.
It is our ability to cope, process, manage, and emote our way through or around life’s setbacks that defines our longevity. This latest loss confirms my belief.
These observations surfaced this morning during a walk in the park in my community. At Chaparral Park in Scottsdale, Arizona to be precise.
My husband and I had just finished our yoga class. Afterwards, he wanted to lift a few weights in the gym.
I opted for stretching my legs on my own under a few puffy clouds that dotted Arizona’s wide-open October sky.
Near the midpoint of my walk a fit couple jogged up as I waited for the light to turn green at Chaparral and Hayden roads. One of them admired my shirt.
“You must be in the medical profession,” he gestured toward the beating heart I wore proudly.
“No, I’m a heart attack survivor,” I explained. “I helped raise money for the American Heart Association.”
They smiled and wished me well. Then, they dashed off when the WALK sign turned white.
It was a simple exchange, a reminder of a trauma I experienced and wrote about which now feels way off in the rearview mirror.
But those few sentences with two sympathetic strangers infused me with a renewed appreciation for my personal resiliency.
No doubt, it’s a quality I observed in my mother, a saver and survivor. She always described herself as a child of the Depression.
It’s also a trait I began to mine in my thirties after my divorce. A strength I’ve fine-tuned on countless treadmills since suffering a mild heart attack six-plus years ago on my sixtieth birthday.
I have no regrets regarding my friendship with Chad, but I wish he would have called Tom or me before he made his worst and most irreversible decision.
I would have told him that while life is no walk in the park, it is always worth the fight. To find a skilled therapist. To dig deep on the darkest days. To survive the pain. To accept our losses.
To embrace each and every day we are granted. To reach out for love and hope. To live to see tomorrow.
This morning, Tom and I learned of the loss of a dear friend. He was only forty-three years old.
The circumstances that prompted Chad’s death are sketchy and unfathomable. All we really know is that he died September 8 or 9.
The person we loved has become a memory.
***
We met Chad several years ago at our community gym in Scottsdale. He was a strong man with a broad chest and an even broader smile and zest for life.
In short order, we began to take long hikes together at Papago Park near our home. Chad would tell us about his work adventures, his previous chapters in Wisconsin and Texas, his love for the Green Bay Packers, and his greater love for his family–particularly his mother and father.
Along the trail, we shared our life philosophies: speaking our truths, doing the right thing, following our passions, telling our stories, living for today.
I know he appreciated the listening ears Tom and I provided. I also know that Chad loved us. And we most definitely loved Chad.
Chad loved music too. One day in May a few years ago, the three of us visited the Musical Instrument Museum in north Scottsdale. We had a blast playing the drums together at an interactive exhibit.
On another occasion, Tom and I helped Chad prepare to move from one Scottsdale apartment to another when his lease was up.
Chad traveled a lot in his job and was meticulous about his car. Once–when he was out of town and his car was repaired at a body shop after an accident–he asked Tom and me to drive it to our home until he returned.
We were happy to help him. I think Tom and I were his only friends in Scottsdale he trusted enough not to hot rod on the way home.
During Covid, Chad came to visit us outside our condo. We sat across from each other at safe distances. It wasn’t ideal but seeing each other and talking in person mattered. It gave us comfort.
In 2022, Chad left Arizona. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for a new career opportunity. Tom and I were thrilled for him, but we missed him and our hikes together. Nonetheless, we had the sense that he was happy in his new home.
In early May of 2023, Chad visited Scottsdale again to renew his friendships here. Tom and I enjoyed talking with him for an hour or so in the chairs outside our condo. We didn’t know it would be the last time we would see our friend.
Now, four months later, we are stunned. Numb. Devastated. With time, we hope to get answers to what happened to our friend.
All we really know is that in an instant he went from being a person to becoming a memory.
For the first time in a month in the Phoenix area, the high temperature failed to reach 110 degrees yesterday. (Unrelated, the kids –reluctantly or not–returned to school for a fresh start. Not my kids, but somebody’s kids.)
108 or 109 isn’t exactly pumpkin-spice latte weather, but it represents a clean-and-slightly-cooler slate for all of us Sonoran Desert rats, though the mercury is due to rise again later this week.
Coincidentally, the first day of this new month (not yet spoiled by the trauma of breaking news) is also the major league baseball (MLB) trading deadline.
MLB teams that feel they have a chance to advance to the playoffs and contend for the World Series title are adding players to their slates, who they hope will get them there.
Others (like my beloved St. Louis Cardinals who have bungled their way through the 2023 season and uncharacteristically reside in last place in their division as August begins) have decided to retool.
They have opted to prepare for a 2024 clean slate, by trading players whose contracts are about to expire for up-and-coming pitching talent that might trigger a positive outcome in the future.
Beyond the ball fields, I feel a sense of relief emotionally as we turn the page to August.
July’s heat–plus the grief of saying goodbye to my aunt, supporting my sister from afar as she recovers from surgery, and remembering the loss of my mother on her 100th birthday–has left me reeling like a rag doll cast into the corner.
While I’m healthy and vital, I think the malaise I’m feeling is probably common for those in my age range. It’s the realization that the world I once knew is shrinking and unfamiliar. Or worse yet, evaporating. That includes the people I love and the institutions I once knew.
For instance, I saw in the news that Yellow (a long-standing trucking company) has filed for bankruptcy. 30,000 employees will lose their jobs. I have no special allegiance to Yellow, but they were a client of mine when I was a consultant for Towers Perrin in the 1990s.
In 1995 and 1996, I caught a flight once a week from Chicago (where I lived) to Kansas City (near their headquarters). I met with the company’s human resources management and helped strategize their employee benefits and pay communication.
It wasn’t rocket science, but I felt I was helping people understand the options before them. Anyway, those workers that remain with the company in 2023 will now begin with a clean slate, too … whether they like it or not … as they work to parlay their pink slips into something of value that has nothing to do with Barbie-mania.
Of course, I’m thankful to be done with the traditional workforce. For Tom and me, we are fortunate to pursue our passions–the appreciation and preservation of classic films for him, the exploration of creative writing and poetry for me–on our own terms.
To close out the month of July, we manufactured our own clean slates by traveling to Flagstaff, Arizona, last week for three days and nights.
It helped me to retreat to cooler temperatures (highs in the upper eighties, lows in the upper fifties) to regain my energy.
We stayed at a lovely and contemporary B&B there: the Bespoke Inn Flagstaff.
Samantha, the manager, surprised us with a complimentary bottle of champagne (when she learned we were commemorating my mother’s milestone birthday).
I surprised her with a complimentary copy of my book of poetry as a parting gift.
Tom and I discovered a fabulous cafe in town–Tourist Home–where we did some reading and writing. The proprietors bake and sell phenomenal gluten-free crullers with sprinkles.
To counteract the calories, we also enjoyed hiking Buffalo Park in Flagstaff. It’s positioned on a plateau just a few miles from the base of the San Francisco Peaks.
Walking the path there with my husband helped me regain my creative footing as I attempt to reignite a fictionalized story that continues to rattle through my brain.
I started to write it last year, but then got derailed. It’s about a young gay man struggling to find his way and write his story in the high altitude of northern Arizona.
For now, that’s all I’ll say, but I’m open to any positive creative vibes you choose to send my way.
On Friday, July 28, 2023, a swatch of sunflowers lined the path at Buffalo Park in Flagstaff, Arizona.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long. Especially because over the past ten years I’ve written extensively about my family, my lineage, and our propensity to seek, find, and carve our own paths. Plus, our impulses to leave behind a trail of our own observations. All of that runs through my DNA.
At any rate, last week I finally bought an Ancestry DNA kit. I opened the cardboard box. Read the directions. Spit my saliva into the provided vial. Put a cap on it. Closed up the box. I sent it away in the mail. I expect to receive the results via email in six to eight weeks.
From my mother’s branch of the family tree, I know I am Scots Irish; from my father’s family, German, Swedish, Norwegian, and French lineage. But maybe there will be a surprise or two.
This additional family research is also prompted by my mother’s one hundredth birthday–coming next week on July 26–and the personal reflection that comes with this significant milestone.
Meanwhile, with nineteen days of 110-plus temperatures under our belts here in the Valley of the Sun, Tom and I are poised for an escape to celebrate Mom’s birthday.
We’re planning a three-day, mountain getaway to Flagstaff, Arizona, where–at an altitude of 7,000 feet–we will be (blissfully) twenty-five degrees cooler than Scottsdale.
Because my mother’s life story (and my associated grief) has served as a catalyst for my writing, I’m offering my first book as a Goodreads Giveaway through July 26th. One hundred readers (chosen randomly) will receive a free download of my book.
Simply enter by July 26. If you’re a lucky recipient of my book, you’ll be notified right after. Then, find a quiet corner away from the heat (I think it’s hot everywhere right now) and get lost in my three-generation story of love, loss, and our family’s passion for writing.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and would appreciate your rating/review online.
I received a sad text message on July 2 from Lu, my cousin’s wife in North Carolina. She told me Frances, my beloved ninety-one-year-old aunt, is in her final stages of life, suffering with the effects of Alzheimer’s.
Frances is my mother’s smart and sassy younger sister–the only one remaining from that generation of my Ferrell family. Her passing–whenever it occurs–will mark the end of a significant chapter in my life … one I wrote about in From Fertile Ground after my mother’s death ten years ago.
When I last visited Frances in September 2015, I sat beside her on the couch of her Davidson, North Carolina living room. It was an important and healing moment for both of us. The loss of her only sister and my only mother was still relatively fresh.
I realized then that returning to North Carolina (where my mother was born) was my way of putting to rest Helen Ferrell Johnson’s earliest life experiences–and some of mine, which included Frances, her sons, warm summer days, and barefoot adventures exploring my grandparents’ Huntersville, North Carolina farm in the 1960s.
Now–just a day away from my sixty-sixth birthday and three weeks from what would have been my mother’s 100th–the knock of grief in July appears once again on the other side of the door.
It ushers me back to July 6, 1974, (my seventeenth birthday) when I stood beside Frances at my grandmother’s (her mother’s) funeral.
We leaned into one another that day in the Asbury Methodist Church cemetery in Huntersville. I needed to feel her love and reassurance, just as I would in September of 2015.
Back in July 2023, my wish is that my aunt’s transition moves swiftly.
In my mind and heart, Frances Ferrell Rogers Christenbury (forever the first child born in High Point, North Carolina, on New Year’s Day 1932) will always be that spunky adventurer.
Frances loved me for who I am … saw and accepted the handwriting on my gay wall before most of the rest of my family … brought joy to my frolicking on the farm … and ordered extra copies of From Fertile Ground to share.
I think it was because reading it helped her heal after the loss of Helen. More than that, because it tells the story of our family’s survival across the generations.
One that will live forever on the pages with Frances and the fertile ground of grief.
It’s my book of Arizona stories and St. Louis flashbacks, which includes a chapter on The Carol Burnett Show and the positive impact the program had on our family in the 1970s.
There is one other significant and unexpected side effect, which Carol’s letter has prompted: a touch of grief.
If you follow my blog or have read any of my books, you know that my mother–Helen Johnson–was the consummate letter writer.
From the late 1980s (when Mom retired) until 2010, she sent me more than a thousand letters laced with love and wisdom.
Some of them appear in From Fertile Ground. It is a three-generation writer’s mosaic about love, loss, and grief. I wrote and published the book a few years after my mother died in 2013.
Helen didn’t quite make it to ninety, the milestone Carol Burnett transcended recently. She came up six months short.
So, when Carol’s letter arrived in the mail it cued a few pangs of sadness and a familiar pleasure. One that has been missing from my life … missing from all of our lives … for a long time. That is the personal, human, and lasting connection produced by a handwritten letter.
With all of this as background, yesterday I pulled out the large blue plastic container that holds all of my mother’s letters–sent to Tom, Nick, Kirk, and me over the years. I have them classified by year.
I began to leaf through her 2003 correspondence. That was the year she turned eighty, on July 26, 2003, to be precise. My sister Diane and I hosted a big party for Mom that summer in Geneva, Illinois.
Family and friends traveled from near and far to attend Helen Johnson’s birthday dinner at the Mill Race Inn. We celebrated her first eighty years. Afterwards, we crossed a bridge over the Fox River to continue the party at the Herrington Inn, where many of our guests were staying.
At one point, a gentleman playing violin walked through the lobby. He asked my mother if she would like him to play Waltzing Matilda, her favorite song. (Matilda was her middle name.)
Mom’s eyes sparkled with glee as he stood over her. He slid the bow across the strings, and I watched her spirit soar. In short order, she began to sing … “Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, you’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me.”
Ordinarily, my mother didn’t enjoy being the center of attention. But, looking back, that moment in a posh hotel on the banks of the Fox River surrounded by loved ones may have been the happiest and most spontaneous moment of Helen Matilda Ferrell Johnson’s life.
If you’ve been doing the math as you read this story, you know that my mother’s 100th birthday is approaching. It’s just two months away. One of the best ways I can celebrate the memories of her is to read her letters, which she mailed to me.
In this one from May 26, 2003–twenty years ago–she recounted for Nick (my older son) and me that she and my dad bought their first new car (a black, four-door Plymouth) in Texas in February 1951.
I must have just told her about Nick’s first car, a used Toyota Camry, which his mom and I had just helped him buy when he was nineteen.
Whether a letter comes from a legend of stage and screen like Carol Burnett or someone who lived a more ordinary (yet still remarkable) life like my extraordinary mother, the words and the movement of the pen on the physical page speak directly from one heart to another … far exceeding the temporary status of a text, email, or phone call.
That’s the context and beauty–the magic, really–of an authentic, handwritten letter.
Mark Johnson Stories 