A Letter to Grant Johnson 4/27/24

Grant –

One of the last things you texted me was a passage from a book about soul. How we can feel it, but we can’t name it. We can resonate with it, but we can’t agree with it.

And I think the reason I’m struggling so hard to put these words together is just that there was some essence about you, your soul, which can’t be fully defined, quantified, or described, but I think everyone that knew you knows exactly how it made them feel.

Less than 24 hours after we met, we were stranded together in the Colombian countryside, having been robbed of our possessions by three men with machetes, and your soul showed through that day. While most people would respond with anger and frustration; your first instinct was to calm those around us. That is how you approached every part of your life. Slowly, intentionally, contemplatively. You breathed deeply, took it all in, and then acted with purpose and kindness.

Ever since that fateful hike in Colombia we were bonded, and yet it felt as if we had known each other forever. We grew up two hours apart, met in South America, and realized we had traveled to many of the same places. You’re the only fellow Midwesterner I’ve met in my travels, and the world explorer I’ve taken the most from. In how you approached every conversation with patience and how quickly you acquired languages. In how humbly you deferred praise, and how fully you embraced every aspect of life. Practically, you unintentionally inspired me to model my lifestyle after yours — simultaneously existing in the cornfields of the US Midwest and taquerias of Latin America — and fully connecting with and loving the polar opposite people in each of your communities.

I’ll never forget when we traveled to Huitzo, Oaxaca for the day, played basketball in a local Sunday league, and ate lunch with the team between games. You had just met everyone for the first time, but you were in immediate communion with them — cracking jokes in Spanish and finding opportunities to include everyone in the conversation and bring the team together. Your very presence put people at ease. You may be gone now, but I still have so much to learn from you.

I felt like our journey together was just beginning. Like we were brothers separated at birth who somehow just got reunited. We were just getting going. You were going to keep helping me learn Portuguese and we were going to take that Brazil trip eventually. And suddenly, everything changed.

Our time together was short, but it was deep. Just like your life. It ended too soon, and yet you did more than most do in 100 years. This still doesn’t make any sense. But all we can do is honor your life by remembering to live the way you did. Full of curiosity, patience, love…and soul. May your beautiful soul rest in peace hermano.

-Mike