Brian Carl Johnson
September 8, 1942 ~ February 29, 2020
A Memorial Tribute From His Children
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"Our true legacy is not born of what is given on paper, or in court, or at silent funerals and invisible graves...It is what is born of love of land, respect for ancestors, heritage, family, loyalty, honor and patience. Time has a way of setting all things right."
~ Michelle Horlbogen
We lost our Dad on February 29, 2020. Leap Year Day. His last joke on us; he was always quite the joker...
What wasn't funny was that we never got to say goodbye. That his wife didn't feel obligated to personally tell us of his passing. That we heard it from other family members, who also told us we were not welcome to go to HIS home, to find comfort, solace and some sense of peace.
We had no idea where his body was, no concise medical evidence of what happened to him, no chance to talk to the doctors in the hospital or his GP as to cause of death, or what happened in the days preceding it. He was cremated before we knew it. A week later, WHO declared a global pandemic; any hopes we had to go to Tennessee and find answers vanished.
And then, just a few months later, we received word from his attorney; we had all been cut out of his will, despite personal conversations with some of us regarding specific gifts he intended to bestow to his children and grandchildren.
One day, he was just GONE...as was whatever inheritance that was built from the back-breaking work of his parents, our grandparents. His fourth wife, her children and grandchildren, his siblings and their children have been, and will continue to, live well off of their legacy. We will not. Whether or not it is what our father wanted, we will never know. What we DO know is that it could never be what our grandparents wanted.
"...Time has a way of setting all things right."
Our Dad loved music, he played the keyboard in a few bands over the years. I remember going to listen to him play as a little girl, he had a running tab for my Shirley Temples. American Pie was one of his favorite songs.
He was a Harley Davidson guy and taught us how to ride motorcycles on our grandparent's land on a yellow Honda 90.
He was a pilot and used to take us up flying in our grandfather's
1946 Piper J3C-65 Cub.
He was a horse lover and taught us how to ride. His horse, Blondie, makes a cameo appearance at the end of the video. We had him for over 30 years.
He's buried at the farm.
Our grandparents owned a dairy farm on Healy Road in Dudley, MA for decades. Some of the photographs in this video are of our beloved farm. A good portion of our family's land now makes up the
Tufts Branch Valley Wildlife Sanctuary.
While it was heartbreaking to sell the farm when they retired to Arizona, my heart is lifted up knowing others can walk the beautiful trails and land
that we grew up playing, riding & working on.
With Love From Your Children,
Wendy
Rebecca
Michelle
Brandi
Brian
Jeremy
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Memories & Condolences
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#family #fathers #Dad #grief #loss #children #legacy #inheritance #stepfamilies
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