Some things you're just not ready for. You don't realize that until that thing lands at your feet.
I've been ready for most of the hits that come with sixty something years. That doesn't mean they didn't hurt or I didn't stagger for a while. It just means I could see them coming. I got the chance to flinch, to throw up a hand. To prepare for the blow.
Divorce, death of parents, a cancer diagnosis...terrible things to live with but none were surprises. Sudden loss of a sibling is something else entirely.
Loretta and her three sons would all tell you their hometown is Elkhorn City. But Johnny was the only one of us actually from Pike county. He was born at Pikeville Methodist Hospital in 1968. I was 10 and Mitch was 4. We'd moved to Elkhorn from Georgia just a year before.
It wasn't long before everyone in town knew Johnny. John and Loretta, for the most part, were free range parents. Johnny roamed like a free range chicken with its head cut off. He might be anywhere at any time, probably running.
Which was probably safer than hanging with his older brothers who tended to talk him into the kind of stunts Johnny Knoxville dreamed of. He was both highly suggestible and indestructible. The kid had a permanent knot in the middle of his forehead between his eyes because he always led with his head. He had a Big Wheel and he knew how to use it.
Clyde Mullins, who nicknamed all the neighborhood kids, dubbed him Sugar Bear. His buddies called him Peanut for size. Whichever, he was a mini nuclear football liable to go off at any time. Everyone who knew him has young Johnny in trouble stories. But everybody loved him because he was the sweetest little force of nature. Just sometimes you had to take a wiffle ball bat to him.
Mother did, anyway.
There was a short period I might not have been surprised by my baby brother's demise. He went through a rough time and developed some bad habits. I knew he was indestructible, but accidents happen.
Then a miracle. Just like in a Hallmark movie, he was saved by a good woman. It took a while, but her golden heart revived his. She grabbed a hold and shook him up, smacked him into what he could be. That was twenty years ago.
Now I'm in shock. When Mitch called I could barely understand what he was saying. John is ten years younger than me. He can't just sit down on his porch and die. That doesn't make any sense.
It still doesn't make any sense. There was no warning. We messaged the day before. He called weekly. He was the one worried about me.
My baby brother was supposed to sing over me. Ten years older, the odds are clear. The last thing I thought I'd be doing is memorializing him.
But that's what we'll be doing Saturday near his home in Elizabethtown. All prayers, love, healing vibes and incantations for his family is humbly appreciated.
There are things you're just not ready for. We need all the help we can get.