Very Special Visitors

Meet Chris and Amanda and their VW van. Chris and his brothers, Mark and Michael, were Joey's friends growing up.

Chris and Amanda are taking a 30-day van trip around the US of A, inspired by Joey and Rachel's year-long trip. They planned their trip so that we could see them and get a hug or two.

I remember how much a shower, a bed and a homecooked meal meant to Joey and Rachel when they were on the road, so it was more than a privilege to have these two overnight. It was also a time to reminisce and hear again some of the trouble these boys got themselves into when they were crazy teenagers...

and thanking God they didn't get caught shooting fireworks off from the roof of the local elementary school though the cops were out looking for them.

Sorry, Chris, the secret's out.

(Chris is a firefighter now, so he does know what a crazy thing that was!)

Here with Jaime and me, we posed in front of Gunther, Joey and Rachel's famous VW Van.

Here I'm chewing out my husband for the open windows and messes inside the van.

He wanted a picture of me at my best.

These two are adorable. They're engaged and Chris is planning a very special romantic evening when they get to NYC. That's all we can say, because we don't want to tell that secret and ruin the surprise.

Happy travels to two very endearing and wonderful people.

And much love from the Johnsons to you both.

Last November

At this time last year, we were on the road. We had to move Joey's anthropomorphic VW bus, fondly known as "Gunther", out from a storage facility in L.A., where it had been languishing for six months, for lack of a better plan. We decided to drive Gunther cross country to its new home, and hopefully new term of service, with our grandchildren in Virginia Beach. It was stuffed full of Joey's life--his chair, his guitars, his backpack and ski gear, and his ashes. We had fears that Gunther couldn't make the trip, but Rachel reassured us that this dented, but sturdy VW was road-hardened from traveling round the Northern Hemisphere and would not fail us. And she was right. We made the long journey without mechanical incident, and arrived safely at our destination the day before Thanksgiving, just as planned.

At that time, my chest cavity was still filled to the top with leaden boulders of grief. I barely breathed. I lived in a heavy fog of shock and confusion, and could hardly think, move, plan or execute. I had no capacity for pressure or stress. I was in excruciating, heretofore unimagined pain, and each day was necessarily basic, simple and uncomplicated. It was as if all my bones were broken and I dared not move anything for fear of the pain it would unleash.

Gunther's gear shift knob and funky rastifarian foot pedals, just as Joey and Rachel found them when they bought it.

The sorrowful but necessary trip turned out to be an unanticipated blessing. It was hard leaving the safety of our home in Maui to go back to L.A., the scene of so much devastating loss. But as we drove away from L.A. out into the wide expanses of the West, away from people and cities and buildings, over rugged mountains, through long green valleys, peering down into paintbox canyons covered with rocks and trees, we began to lose our fear of the road and of change. We soon found we relished the start of each day's drive, sitting in the refuge of our son's van, experiencing some of what Joey and Rachel lived when they took a similar trip the year before; and particularly soothing for us: the peace of miles of solitude that stretched before us with no responsibilities except to fill the gas tank.

We had a modest time table, and so we could take each day as it came, making time to stop and smell and listen and feel the changing season as we moved east. One Sunday morning near the end of our trip, we had an especially magical drive through the Smoky Mountains. There were few other cars on the road at 7 a.m. , and the light was different--so clear, shimmering with life, so quiet you could hear it, so peaceful our raw nerve endings settled into a purr. And the peace touched our ragged souls, both of us, deeply, maybe for the first time since Joey left. We listened to worship music and let it soak into us as we drove wordlessly, through the most beautiful cathedral of them all. The trees spired high over our heads, and the most incredible blue sky sat straight above us, peeking in and out of the trees. It was a holy moment. It was one of those moments when you know there is something more personal and powerful and mystical to the universe than what we've pieced together so far.

My little camera could not do it justice, but these pictures will give you the idea.

We drove in a sacred hush, quieted by the beauty outside our windows. I was beginning to realize that nature could comfort me in a deeper way than anything else and more than I thought possible. No words, no music, no person, could give me the internal balm that the beauty of nature gave me.

I will admit I was suspicious of that. I have been trained to worship the Creator, not the creation. When our pastor recently taught on the book of Job, I got a new perspective. I've now concluded that at times of deep suffering, we can't see or hear the Creator. When Job's torrent of pain and confusion finally poured forth in despair and frustration, he got smack into God's face with his questions. And God smacked right back-- not with answers, but with his own set of questions: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

Four chapters later, God's basic response to Job is "look at what I've made--look at Nature". It doesn't tell us "why", but it does declare the greatness of God and that He is big enough for all that we doubt. That makes sense to me and has freed me to do what I had already been doing, finding solace in the beauty of nature.

It was the most memorable segment of our 5000 mile trip, and it was the start of a turning point in our lives. We emerged from the mountain passes into the wide, grassy valleys below.

We had planned to stay with our daughters just through the holidays, but while we were there, we made the decision to pack up our own previously idyllic island life and move to Virginia. People are usually surprised by this and ask how we could do it. Simple. We couldn't bear any more separation from our beloved children. It was already too much that Joey was gone. And so began a new beginning...

A year later we know it was the right decision. Everything has changed, nothing is the same, yet we are surviving. We feel less heaviness. We shed fewer tears. We are settling in. We miss our son endlessly, and yet we are slowly trusting the Maker of it all that there is a bigger plan.

The Dream of a Lifetime

Joey and Rachel dreamed and schemed for a year. They each worked really hard in their professions and saved as much as possible. They sold everything that wasn't essential including Joey's Bose Wave radio. They did lots of research and corresponded with some travel writers who had done what they were about to do. They made an excel spreadsheet and projected their mileage and costs--food, gas, lodging, auto repairs, Starbucks. They bought a VW Westphalia van (known as a Westy by the devotees) and readied it for a year on the road. Then they christened the van "Gunther" and launched their journey with a well-attended Bon Voyage party.

They documented their trip with a blog. It turned out to be highly readable as they are both really good writers and they had some exciting/harrowing/beautiful adventures that they were generous enough to share with us through words and pictures. This picture was on the sidebar of their blog and it shows their route from LA north to Alaska, east to Montreal and down the Eastern Seaboard, then a roller coaster through the southern states and back to LA. That was Part One. Part Two of their journey made the loop from LA down the Pacific coast to the Panama Canal and back up again on the Gulf side of Latin America. WOW. That's a ROADTRIP! I love the symbols they have "riding" on top of Gunther to represent each destination.

This is how it was. Two surfboards, a pop-top camper, and an ocean view. The only thing that's missing in this shot is the hammocks that seemed to so frequently cradle their healthy, strong, suntanned bodies.

It was hard to let them go on that trip (not that they asked!) but we are so extremely glad now that they lived that dream. It wasn't something they just talked about. They did it. They made it happen. They shared it with the rest of us benchwarmers who maybe aren't so daring.

It makes me so happy that my son lived this dream and that beautiful Rachel was by his side. Before he went to Heaven, he was cooking up a new scheme--sailing around the world. Sometimes I think he knew his life would be short and he just went for it. If you have a dream, I want to encourage you to go for it, too, and I will cheer you on. I think that's what we're meant to do. I'm trying to find my way through grief so that I can still live some of my dreams.

And for all of us...carpe diem.

Those were the days, my friends...we thought they'd never end...