May 23, 2025.
I always saw the Cards as this perfect family that I wanted dearly to be adopted into. A perfect family with a fridge full of food. Anything you could eat. More than the grocery store. They had it all.
When I found out about Joe being sick a flood of feelings came rushing up. The unbelievable support I had received. The rides to and from basketball practice. The meals at fast food restaurants afterwards that I couldn't imagine being included in. We stopped for taco bell, and were encouraged to eat unbelievable amounts of tacos. Both soft and hard.
I had always looked for a male role model. My father was fine, but I didn't look up to him. I didn't respect him. Joe Card was one of the two adult men that I found in my environment who represented what I thought a father was. I watched. I learned.
There were many ways in which I leaned on Joe for support. Even after Michael had been out of the house for years and I was still calling to ask to use the study room so that I could have a quiet and clean space in which to review my school material.
I started preparing for the funeral about a week in advance. Dave had called and given me the warning that Joe had become terminal in his diagnosis. My mother, passing years earlier, was now in the room with me. The tools that she had put in my pockets now sprang to life. I knew that what mattered in these last precious moments was to be available, and invisible. To distract, to listen, and to assuage was what I could offer.
I asked to come visit and the next Saturday I came over at about noon. Joe was resting but came out to the sitting room in order to receive me. Shortly thereafter I would actually appreciate how much of a gift that was. His health was deteriorating so quickly. We only talked briefly. But in that 30 minutes he only wanted to know about me. How were my struggles. Had my difficulties been addressed, how was I managing.
Joanna was up from Utah and passed through the room. Adding pillows and blankets where needed, and silently disappearing again. I had brought my son Michael. He is 13 now, but as tall as me and covered in acne. Such a handsome little thing. I brought him with me because 13 is where Joe really supported me the most. I could not have been on so many teams, I could not have had so many adventures except for the fact that Joe would tirelessly include me.
My son Michael had been told many days before the funeral that he would be coming along. He was to get a haircut. He was to collect his fancy clothing. He was to be prepared to go on Friday and miss school. On the morning of he was getting dressed and those most recent dress clothing that we bought were now like shrink wrap on his growing frame. No less than six inches of ankle were visible between his pants and his shoes.
I couldn't seem to think about the funeral all morning. I spent the hours beforehand pulling dandelions out of a lawn that was unredeemable and covered in the yellow monsters. A lawn more dandelion than grass. But also, it was my way of staying in the moment and not becoming distracted with all of the distracting things in life. Our final moments at home I had been polishing red into my dress shoes and black into Mirandas slip on shoes. It had been crisp and wet with dew in the morning, but now the sun had quickly turned the day into a bright, warm, sunny situation.
Our Johnson relatives so often arrive late to funerals and disrupt the proceedings by coming in late and making a fuss while coming into the chapel. Sometimes even arriving after the family had left the grave side. That is no longer arriving late, that is arguably not arriving at all.
All of the high school basketball team mates had been notified by David earlier on in the week. When I arrived with Miranda and Michael to the funeral I was met by Stephen, and he sat beside us. We marveled at the faces of parents, decades later, that we recognized. All of these faces that sat in the bleachers of our basketball games. Hundreds of hours cheering and stomping for us in smelly CBE gymnasiums.
Just before we all rose for the grieving family my son Michael pointed to the handout and said "LOOK, JRR TOLEN!!!!". A quote on the last fold of the funeral service sheet.
The service began and we all stood for the family to come into the chapel. A huge procession. The service began with a hymn, but the really memorable moment was when Jen walked up to the pulpit and began to talk.
I felt like she was talking directly to me. I had picked up tissues from london drugs on the way to the funeral and I didn't stop using them the whole time. She spoke about the families pantry, and people raiding it. She spoke about Joes unrelenting drive to follow through. How Joe would never miss a tournament except for the day in which Jen got married, and he reminded her that her wedding had caused him to miss an important basketball tournament. As she said Dad I'll miss you, of course someone's phone rang in the congregation. There were so many old folks in the pews and I am surprised that any phones were turned off.
The week before the funeral I was having many memorable flashbacks of the service that Joe gave me. He drove me to Montana to watch Michael play basketball. I loved when he flew to Vancouver to fill Michaels cupboards with food. He was unbelievably fun but in the most peculiar way with me. I remember going to Austin Powers and during the tent scene he was over powering all others with his laugher about things falling in and out of butts.
Jen also spoke of not punishing mistakes in her talk, and of teaching with patience. Later at the Cards home in Silver Springs I told her that I thought that her talk as a whole was very rude. She had made me cry the whole entire time. I think she could have left me a few moments during her talk with which to compose myself. Part of her talk even being about tissue papers and how people should not be sniffling. I was not following the rules.
After eating our fill and sharing memories in the church gymnasium I heard the familiar sound of chairs clanking together and SPRANG into action. I hadn't put chairs away at a church in so many years. Finally I was going to get the chance to clean up after a meal. I had sent Miranda and Michael home to receive the girls after school but as the gym was closing up I called for a ride home. Before leaving the gymnasium I took photos of the table that had been left out. These photos were disjointing to me. Snap shots into a life that I wanted to hear more about. So many photos that said a thousand words.
The grave side service was in Queens Park just past our house and I asked to come along. As we were walking out of the Church the skies had clouded over and I was anticipating some rain. So as I got home and I grabbed two umbrellas and ran over to the Cemetery.
I drove in circles around in the cemetery for a bit, not able to orient myself to where I'd seen the X on the map. I passed the Chinese section of the cemetery quiet a few times but finally found the gravesite. Jay was standing there stoic and ready to bless the site.
I got to stand by Aunt Catherine for a few moments before the rest of the group arrived. Although I didn't know her, she seemed so familiar. Like standing next to my sister Catherine. Just comfortable and reassuring and kind.
As Jay began to talk, the skies began to open. Jay consecrated the grave site, he made us all aware that 5 urns at once was a cemetery record. Not one that any of us should be trying to break I suppose. But as he finished the thunder began to crack, and the lightening began to flash, and many of us questioned whether the record might in fact end up being 6-20 interred today.
We all rushed away from the graveside. It was covered in towering pines. Huge lightening attracting pines. I stopped at 7-11 to grab a Slurpee and undo the damage to my hydration levels that Jen had inflicted. I went right over to Silver Springs to spend the rest of the day with Mike and Chad, and Dave.
We sat in that basement most of the evening. A re-introducing of friends from twenty years ago. I drank Joes zero alcohol beers and we ate funeral sandwiches and listened to music.
A small little thing kept coming up and down the stairs to sit around the men. He introduced himself as Marcus and I got to know him a little bit. I had seen him on the stage back at the funeral. A dapper little sweater and a beautiful set of freckles. He asked me if I smoked and told me that he was very happy that I didn't. In fact later in the evening he asked me my name and then said "I like you. You're very nice". A better compliment from a nicer person, I could not imagine.
At one point in the evening Dave very boldly asked Chad about his childhood and about his experiences and then all of us heard stories that I don't believe I have ever heard. It's interesting that we can all live lives together and even so have incomplete understandings of what really is driving our behaviors.
I had a unique perspective on Joe. I lived in two worlds and got Joe the father. Which is unique from Joe the friend, or Joe the husband. Joe the father was much more serious. I heard lovely stories of Joe's humor but I experienced about 10% of that. He was instead Joe the concerned adult trying to give Richard the child a stable and unwavering father figure. I loved Joe. I'll always be thankful for the spaces that he filled in the picture of my life. My picture would be incomplete without him.
The last thing that I promised Joe was that I would come back to tell him stories. I'd come back and entertain him. "What types of stories would you like Joe? Salacious stories, kind stories, fun stories?" And to that he said "Tall tales. Nothing of this world. Nothing true. Tell unimaginable stories". Brenda also chimed in. "HUNTING STORIES!!! He never gets enough of hunting stories". I had stories planned, and I had the topics set. I had some half done but I never did get back to tell him my stories. I'll ever be disappointed that I couldn't tell him just one more story.
