Monday, December 27, 2004 Huntsville Times
A year later, family still feels pain but also has memories of good times A year and two weeks have come and gone since that cold December morning when the unthinkable befell the Johnsons of Hampton Cove. The passage of time has helped to a degree, as it always does. The shock and the numbness have receded now, replaced by the precious memories of the good times and by the reassuring conviction that some sweet day they'll see Lisa again in a better place that knows no sorrow. But it's still not easy in the here and now, of course. Not easy remembering that day, thinking about it, talking about it. Not easy when it's still the first thing that comes to mind in the mornings and the last conscious thought at night. It all began not unlike the first three mornings of that week in the fashionable brick home of David "Hoss'' Johnson, his wife Lisa and their two children - Tyler, then a 13-year-old eighth-grader, and his sister Madison, 12, a sixth-grader. Lisa was staying home, recuperating from minor day surgery four days earlier. Her mother, Dale Davis, had come to help out. Mrs. Davis was expecting to return to her home in Hamilton in another day or two. Everything seemed perfectly normal that morning. After breakfast, Tyler and Madison kissed their mother, told her "I love you'' and gathered up their books for school. Hoss dropped them off at Hampton Cove Middle School, just down the road, and drove back home, contemplating the rest of his day. Although he had taken a few days off, he thoughts were on his job. He asked himself: Is there anything I need to be doing at work today? When he walked in the door, a distraught Mrs. Davis told him Lisa had passed out on the bathroom floor, and she wasn't waking up. Much of what happened the next few minutes is still foggy in Hoss' mind, like a bewildering, surreal movie about somebody else. The ambulance arrived quickly at 2916 Tantallon Drive. Everything was a fast fury, Hoss recalls - the frantic ride over Monte Sano and down the winding hill on Governors Drive ... the siren blaring and the lights flashing ... cars pulling off to the side ... the attendants working urgently with masks and tubes ... the screeching arrival at Huntsville Hospital's emergency room ... the fearful vigil in the waiting room as family and friends began gathering ... and then the doctor emerging and saying the words nobody could believe: "I'm sorry. There's nothing more we can do.'' Somebody glanced at the clock on the wall and remembered the time. It was 8:58 a.m. on Dec. 11, 2003. ... It was a PE, the family later learned - a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot to the lung. Statistically, it's the third most common cause of sudden death in the United States. About 200,000 Americans die every year of PE, almost twice as many annual deaths as those caused by AIDS or highway accidents. Several people from the Huntsville area died of various causes that same Dec. 11: Bob Ailor, a veteran of the U.S. Army Signal Corps and a pillar of Mountain View Baptist Church; William Baker, another Army veteran and the operator of City Coal Company from 1952-98; Kate Essenwanger, a longtime Red Cross volunteer and the wife of Dr. Oskar Essenwanger for 56 years; Shirley Harper, 69, a native of Big Cove and a former school teacher in Tennessee; Alice Wilmer, 78, a former registrar at Grissom High School ... And Lisa Johnson. She was just 39 years old. Origin of a nickname They met in college at the University of Alabama in the early 1980s, the burly, outgoing football player from Huntsville and the pretty coed from Hamilton in Marion County. Lisa was the daughter of Jim and Dale Davis. Jim Davis was a former offensive lineman for Red Drew at Alabama, lettering in 1951-52-53. On Jan. 1, 1954, he watched on crutches from the sideline while Alabama lost to Rice in the Cotton Bowl, the game that will always be remembered because of Tommy Lewis and Dicky Moegle. Hoss, the youngest of the three children born to Cotton and Linda Johnson, came into the world weighing a few ounces over 12 pounds. The hospital nurse who brought him to his parents quipped, "This boy's a real hoss.'' The offhand remark turned into a lifetime nickname. Hoss went on to become an All-State lineman for coach Mike Guerry at Butler High School. In 1982, he became the last high school football prospect Paul "Bear'' Bryant ever signed. Under Bryant's successor, Ray Perkins, Hoss started 28 games on the offensive line from 1984-86. Lisa and Hoss married in 1987, the same year he signed as a free agent with the St. Louis Cardinals of the NFL. The following summer, he went to work for Huntsville's Parks and Recreation Department, where he now works as a supervisor in Zone 4, which encompasses most of south Huntsville. It's easy to remember his first day on the job, says Hoss. It was 8/8/88. Tyler was born two years later and Madison came a little over a year after that. Like their parents and their parents' parents, the Johnson children were raised at the foot of the cross in a close-knit, God-fearing, church-going family. It was their faith, and the faith of their father, that would sustain them and their extended family when the worst came. Cotton, who once owned and operated a bus company, transported many of the city's athletic teams to various home and away games for years. Linda was Butler High's longtime secretary. Hoss' older brother, Rick Johnson, is the pastor of Huntsville's Friendship Baptist Church. He and his wife Paula have seven children. The Johnson brothers' sister, Melanie Lockard, lives with her husband Bill in Bear, Del. They have 11 children. At family gatherings and holidays, it's not uncommon for as many as 30 people - including 20 grandchildren - to show up at the Johnson household. Hoss likes to tell the story of the day his father drove a bus to the airport to meet Melanie and her brood. The attendant asked Cotton, "Are you here to pick up a football team?'' "Something like that,'' deadpanned Cotton. A test of faith On the day Lisa died, Tyler Johnson's middle school team had its football banquet the same night. Tyler, a husky young lineman, had been named to the All-City team. "I'm going to go,'' Tyler told his father that afternoon. "Mom would want me to go.'' Hoss agreed. Later that afternoon, while Madison's friends flocked to her side and friends and neighbors and family members and Lisa's co-workers from the Flint Mill subdivision of Jeff Benton Homes and Gary Bradley, the pastor of Mayfair Church of Christ, ministered to Hoss, Tyler ironed his own clothes, then rode to the banquet with his coach, Jim Morse. On the night of the visitation, so many people came to Laughlin's that dozens never made it through the line before the doors closed. The next day at the funeral, the Mayfair church's sanctuary was packed. All the arrangements had fallen on Hoss - the pallbearers, the time of the funeral, the hymns to be sung. Later he would say that you never think of something like that happening, that you plan on such things later in life, but you don't even think about it when a person is 39 years old. Everyone was amazed how Hoss and the children were holding up. Once everything sets in, he would explain to those who asked, there's a peace the Lord gives you. If you have your faith, your friends and your family, he said, you'll come through it. If you don't, you won't. They've been through grief, even questioned God, Linda Johnson said. But we also believe everything happens for a reason, she said, even something like this. Christmas, coming just 11 days after the funeral, was especially difficult. "Hoss' inner strength and the families' faith in God carried us,'' Rick Johnson said. "We'd been through tragedies before. Melanie had a baby die. Then there were grandparents and so forth. On the last day of October in 2002, my father had a stroke that affected his speech. But this was something entirely different.'' A scholarship is born Two years earlier, Hoss and three neighborhood friends - Steve Hatfield and David Schmitt, who played sports at Lee, and Huntsville High graduate Tommy Locke, now a high school football official - went in together to buy a huge rotisserie smoker and started their own weekend barbecue catering service. On the day after Christmas last year, Hoss and the kids and his cooking buddies and their families loaded up and drove to Orange Beach for five days. The getaway to the Gulf Coast really helped, Hoss said. But going back to work in January was hard. His e-mail was full. People kept calling, wanting to know, "What can we do?'' The winter of 2004 turned into spring, and spring into summer, and gradually the family began to move on with the business of living. You don't want to rely on others too much, Hoss said. You don't want to wear out their good will. You realize there's a time when you have to stand on your own feet. In early summer, Hoss was invited to play in the George Teague golf tournament, a project supported by the local Alabama alumni chapter. Eric West came up with the idea of starting a scholarship endowment in Lisa's name. With the help of Mike Hicklen, a benefit golf tournament was put together in just eight weeks. It was played at the Becky Peirce Municipal Golf Course on Oct. 30, an open date on Alabama's football schedule. Nearly 100 players showed up, including several of Hoss' former teammates. They raised $7,000 for the Lisa Johnson Scholarship Fund. When football season finally arrived, Hoss and the kids drove to several Alabama games in Tuscaloosa. Usually, a friend of Tyler's or Madison's would take the fourth seat. By then, 14-year-old Tyler was involved in football at Huntsville High and preparing to wrestle in the winter. Madison, 13, was playing basketball and taking lessons in dance and piano. Hoss was in the midst of his busiest time of the year. For the Johnsons of Hampton Cove, life was returning to a semblance of normalcy. Rick Johnson noticed a subtle change the first week in November. Lisa and Cotton shared the same birth date - Nov. 9. Thanksgiving was coming on. Rick saw Hoss turning more reflective. Not moody. Just more introspective. But it soon passed. He's going to make it, Rick told himself. They're all going to make it. Like a bird with one wing Late last week, just before his second Christmas without Lisa, Hoss was telling an old acquaintance over lunch how proud he is that his children have been able to adjust to the new realities of the past year. He wanted them to understand, he said, that faith is the most important thing. They've learned a lot of things over the last year, he said. Good things. Sure, they've all had their moments. There's an imbalance in the family dynamic, he said. It's like a bird with one wing. Sometimes, you just fly around in circles. But you also get a lot of insight when you're by yourself, Hoss said. You remember the importance of the vows you took when you got married. You realize your responsibilities as a parent, which double when you're the only one left. All you can do is keep the faith and carry on, doing the things you have to do. "I don't question why this happened,'' Hoss said. "It was more like, 'Why now?' People say they can't imagine something like this, and it is hard to imagine. Sometimes I'll be out someplace and I'll hear a voice that sounds like Lisa's and it all comes rushing back. It reminds you real quick how suddenly things can happen and how fragile life can be.'' Epilogue Lisa, a meticulous planner, always had most of the Christmas shopping finished by late October or early November. In the days leading up to Christmas of 2003, Hoss rummaged through the closets and the other usual hiding places, hunting for the gifts she had already bought to go underneath the tree. It took a while, but he finally found the one he'd been looking for the most. Just a few days before her death, Lisa had told him: "You're going to love what I got you for Christmas.'' It was a large Daniel Moore print of the painting called "The Comeback,'' which depicts the decisive moment of the 1985 Alabama-Georgia game in Athens, Ga. Alabama was leading 13-9 late in the fourth quarter, but Georgia scored on a blocked punt with less than a minute to go. In five plays, Mike Shula led the Crimson Tide on a 71-yard scoring drive, the touchdown coming on an 18-yard pass from Shula to Albert Bell in the closing seconds. Alabama won, 20-16. In the center of the painting, just to Shula's right as he cocks his left arm on the touchdown play, is Hoss Johnson, No. 60 in the white jersey, delivering a crucial block. 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