A biker walked into my dying mother\u2019s hospice room, and I immediately tried to call security. He looked rough\u2014tattoos, beard, leather vest\u2014and I had told staff that my mother wasn\u2019t accepting visitors. But before I could force him out, my mother opened her eyes for the first time in two days and whispered, \u201cJohnny?\u201d The huge biker broke down crying and gently held her hand. \u201cNo, ma\u2019am,\u201d he said softly. \u201cI\u2019m not Johnny. But Johnny sent me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through tears, he explained that Johnny had been my mother\u2019s first love in 1960. They had planned to run away together, but her family forced her to end it to protect her sister\u2019s future. She told him she didn\u2019t love him\u2014her greatest heartbreak and secret. Johnny never stopped loving her. Every June 15th for sixty-three years, he wrote her a letter, hoping someday to find her. He had just finally located her\u2014only to die three months earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The biker, Diego, was Johnny\u2019s friend. Johnny had saved his life after war and addiction, so when Johnny asked him to find my mother before she passed, Diego rode through the night to fulfill that promise. He placed Johnny\u2019s letters in her hands and comforted her as she cried, learning he had never forgotten or blamed her. My mother died peacefully a few hours later, clutching those letters and whispering, \u201cTell Johnny I\u2019m coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two weeks later, Diego and his motorcycle club attended her funeral. They cried for a woman they\u2019d never met, honoring Johnny\u2019s love and loyalty. Now I read one of Johnny\u2019s letters every June 15th. My mother spent a lifetime loving quietly, and he spent a lifetime loving faithfully. Their love didn\u2019t get a traditional ending\u2014but it got peace, honor, and remembrance. Sometimes the people we judge most are the ones sent to deliver love we didn\u2019t know still existed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A biker walked into my dying mother\u2019s hospice room, and I immediately tried to call security. He looked rough\u2014tattoos, beard, leather vest\u2014and I had told staff that… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":304,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14737,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14735\/revisions\/14737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}