Chapter 11: A sudden Tragedy & Johnny Gift

Johnny as a child

Johnny with Yogananda and Christ

Johnny spent his early childhood at Ananda Village. As an independent young adult he lived off the Ananda property, but nearby with his brother, Gabriel, and had his own lifestyle and circle of friends. He did, however, remain in touch, partly through his landlady Terry, an Ananda member, and partly through regular visits to the community to see his mother, Hridaya. In the words of Hridaya and Terry, here is the story of his passing.

~ Nayaswami Nalini

In the middle of the night Terry heard a gunshot. The sound came from the direction of the rental house on her property, located uphill from Terry’s home. Terry: At 2:37 that morning, having fed the cat, I was shuffling back toward bed. Suddenly, there was a loud report. I stood in the screened porch, looking up at the rental house, wondering what the sound meant. An anguished young woman’s voice began wailing in the upper yard. “Please, please, please no, noooo,” unable to stop. Then a deep voice cried out, up and down the yard, louder at the corner near where I stood on the porch.

“Johnny,” I yelled, “are you all right?” There was no answer. Thirty minutes later the place was illuminated by the flashing lights of police cars. I walked up the hill to their house. A young police officer stood on the front porch, hands across his chest, the front door open behind him. I explained that I owned the property. Johnny, he said, had shot himself in a tragic accident while putting away a 357-magnum he had been showing to two friends. He had died in an instant.

Hridaya

Johnny’s mother

Hridaya (Johnny’s mother): On July 31, 2008, my twenty-five-year-old son, Johnny, died in an accident. When I heard the news of his death, I was in the parking lot of the Living Wisdom School at Ananda Village where I work. It was 9:00 a.m. and many important projects awaited me in preparation for the beginning of the school year.

Suddenly, those projects evaporated, no longer having any life or substance. In those first few seconds I felt the slam of a battering ram to my gut, the breath totally knocked out of me. I was engulfed in horror and disbelief as I watched my worst nightmare unfold before me.

I went home and a few friends gathered around. Not until an Ananda minister performed the Astral Ascension Ceremony* for the soul of my son did I begin to feel grounded again in my body. I calmed down and began to sense that my son’s soul was protected.

The “back and forth” of grieving

Even when we tune into our loved one’s soul nature, we still grieve in a very human way. We can’t help it. No longer can we talk with them, touch them, hold them. The reality of their solid existence is simply over. Grieving is an experience that flips back and forth from the deep calm knowing that your loved one’s spirit is in God and alive in your heart, to the experience of suddenly, without warning, breaking down uncontrollably in the grocery store because you miss his laugh so much.

During Johnny’s memorial service I felt strong and enveloped in God’s grace, at peace with his passing. Two days later I was sobbing over a box of Cheerios that had belonged to him. I am learning to accept both realities as the healing process runs its course, and I move deeper into the center of the experience and find peace there.

A word about how to relate to a person who has experienced a deep loss: Don’t avoid, always approach. Even if you can’t think of appropriate words to express your sympathy, give silent love. Hold the person. Words are so inadequate most of the time anyway. Sensitivity to this reality is important. I have deep, meaningful memories of the ways people comforted me, and I will never forget these kindnesses.

The gift of boundless love

The alternative to shriveling up in pain from the loss of a loved one is to love more. Pain can either contract or expand the heart. When we choose expansion, not contraction, we have room to move around within the grieving process—we have the space to stretch out and touch our loved one’s spirit.

After all, the love we feel for our friends and family is not our love. It’s God’s love, and that love is immense, unfathomable, and forever expandable. It can never be squeezed only into the forms of those few we call our own.

The secret gift of the loss of a loved one is that you get catapulted into a world of expansive love. Along with feelings of deep human loss, I have experienced the gift of that boundless love.

Everyone experiences loss

This is my story. And yet, it is not just my story; it is everyone’s story. We will not avoid the pain of catastrophic loss in this life. There is a story in the Indian tradition of a widow with one beloved son. The son died, and the mother was inconsolable. She went to a holy man and demanded through her sobs that he bring her son back to life.

The holy man agreed. “Yes,” he said. “I will do this. But first you must bring me some oil from the home of a family in the village that has not experienced death.”

The old woman left the presence of the holy man with a spring in her step. She hurried from one village door to the next, asking for the oil. But gradually her elation faded. In her own deep pain she had forgotten that the sorrow of death is universal. She returned to the holy man humbled, understanding that everyone suffers for his lost loved ones.

Our tests are tailor-made

None of us is a stranger to sorrow in this life. Since I had previously experienced another kind of loss, I knew that shock, anger, denial, and eventual acceptance are some of the stages in the grieving process. This test, however, was out of all proportion to anything I had ever been through.

I have read a number of helpful articles on the grieving journey and have found some solace in the sense of common experience. It is a relief to know that one’s emotions pass through a general pattern during this process. And yet, our tests are tailor-made for each of us. I have found that my experience at times fits the pattern of the typical grieving process and at other times becomes uniquely my own. I am attempting to let the process happen through me, not to arrange it, anticipate it, or judge it.

I do know this—I have a connection with Johnny that has not been broken by death. If there is something to be thankful for in this experience it is that in seeking to go deeper in Spirit to connect with Johnny, I have gone much deeper in Spirit. And I have become more aware that there is no separation between Spirit and me.