Sportsmanship is alive and well. I read this article on ABC’s Person of the Week and it moved me and gave me hope.
Its the story of two young men and their basketball teams. One young man lost his mother hours before the game and came to play because that is what his mother would want him to do. What the other team did was amazing. It is nice to know that coaches are still teaching sportsmanship and class.
Because it isn’t always only about who wins. it is how you play the game.
The last 6 days have been the longest in my life.
On Monday, Tyler’s 30th birthday I received a frantic call from him that Austin was on the way to the hospital.
He had quit breathing and his body was cold. After 90 minutes they let Tyler and Savannah know that their baby, our beloved grandson, Austin Tyler Johnson was gone.
An autopsy was done and they found no foul play , just a healthy baby boy. SIDS was the official cause of death.
We buried little Austin Tyler Johnson on Friday, February 20th. The family had a special send off for his big brother Dylan on Saturday morning at the gravesite with all the beautiful flowers surrounding Austin’s physical resting place. Brother Larry knelt down and spoke directly to Dylan, he then read a note that Dylan had written to Austin. He asked if Dylan would like to write a message on a balloon and send it to heaven. Dylan nodded yes. The first balloon the Dylan tried to write on broke as it touched the grass. I watched as Dylan wrote, “I will remember you all ways” and colored in a big red heart on a white balloon. Tyler and Savannah signed that balloon too.
We all passed 3 other balloons around and wrote notes. Brother Larry was wise in letting Dylan know that sometimes the balloons would get caught in the trees or break on the way up into the sky, but it didn’t matter because Austin knew what we were writing and he would get our love notes.
We then released the balloons and watched them make their way to heaven. The interesting thing was that the wind was blustering that day and there was a big tree, void of leaves near the gravesite. As we released the balloons, the first one which was Dylan’s headed straight for the tree, followed by the remaining three. We all held our breath just waiting for all 4 balloons to pop.
Not one balloon popped! Each one touched the tree and got caught in the branches and wiggled its way free to soar! Clapping and cheering from all as we watched them fly to the heavens. Those balloons were very symbolic on many levels. No matter what seems impossible, we can make it thru and thrive.
We watched until we couldn’t see the balloons anymore.
Austin Tyler Johnson would have been 3 months old the day we sent our love on balloons that followed him to heaven.
You didn’t have time to make fingerprints on the wall, instead you made footprints on our hearts. Yes Dylan, we will always remember Austin.
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Isn’t this going to be fun! Over the years I have come across all kinds of nuggets of information that I have shared with friends and family. These nuggets can be just about anything… personal development, personal style, travel tips, food finds, restaurants, cooking tips, decorating, the neatest find on just about anything.
The name of this blog came about on the wedding bus! Well not exactly. You see on January 1st I married Vic Johnson. So on December 31st, we took all our family members to a real Texas BBQ spot, The Salt Lick just outside of Austin Texas. You just can NOT visit Texas without getting some GOOOOOD BBQ. There were lots of out-of-staters (Vic is from Florida) and a truly Texan experience was in order. So we rented a bus, loaded ‘em up and put my sister Melea in charge of “entertainment”.
Melea put together a bunch of questions … sort of “game show meets how well do the bride and groom know each other” quiz. One of the questions to each of us was what was the other person’s number one dream. Answer: Vic’s is to build a house in Jackson Hole and mine is my internet tv show centered around cooking & lifestyle tips. Which no one knew about. So Melea quickly said… last 4 rows in the bus… come up with a name for the show…you have 60 seconds!”. Emma, my niece shouted out “Living it with Lisa”. And thus the name stuck. Since the internet show is not yet live…a blog was born!
Now I can share all my nuggets in one place for all to see!
It’s all about the lifestyle that is YOU!
Enjoy the journey with me!
Lisa
