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My thoughts are always with Mom and my Daddy on my birthday, 29 December.
I imagine my young parents, both 26 years old. They did not know what would lie ahead for them as a family and what would be my future when I was born.
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My Mother had lost most of her amniotic fluid at 20 weeks. There was no ultra-sound at that time. In the United States, a miscarriage is usually defined as loss of a baby before the 20th week of pregnancy, and a stillbirth is loss of a baby at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
I was born full term with my right leg twisted and turned around my neck. My hips, my right knee, and all my toes were congenitally dislocated. My body was immediately casted in plaster.
At 6 months, I was sent to Shriners Hospital to live for the next 3.5 years. After 18 months of lying in a crib, tied to a platform face down, my Daddy successfully fought for me to leave for 2 months. I had never seen the sky or a bird or a flower or felt the warmth of the sun or a breeze nor scent that was not antiseptic. Visits were restricted: allowance of only one adult relative once a week for 2 hours – no touching your child.
My Mom tenderly wrote a memoir of all her recollections as a young mother one year before her sudden death. Her pent up memories were restored and flowed. Blue ink. She wrote of my astonishment of the world, seeing my older sister, Lynne, and my younger brother, Bill. Wonder and awe! I ate the cacophony of colored flowers in my Grandma Johnson’s garden!
The framed picture above always was on Mom’s bedside table. I was 6 months old in the black and white photograph. It was taken the same week when my young parents would bring me to what was known at that time: Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children.
Two weeks ago, I found a handwritten letter in an envelope that was pressed to the side of my Mother’s dressing bureau, which is now in my home. I opened it carefully. My Mom’s exquisitely elegant handwriting in blue ink inquiring together with Daddy twelve questions: what will be for their second daughter; what can we do; she loves to dance with her crutches – is that dangerous; public or private or special school; etc. This was a crossroads time: a decision was being weighed to whether amputate my right leg above the knee down.
This remarkable letter found decades later was a handwritten copy of the letter sent to Shriners. PDF below. My Daddy would be killed instantly in a car accident two years later – his head decapitated.
MOM_DADDY_12_QUESTIONS_FOR_SHRINERS_HOSPITAL_FOR_CRIPPLED_CHILDREN_1958
The twelve questions were addressed and answered. My parents made decision to pull me out of Shriners forever. What followed was a threshold turning point. My Mother’s sister: Aunt Anne, a pediatrician, learned of Dr. Mark B. Coventry of Mayo Clinic. He was known as a rare prism of: creative medical genius, a worldly renaissance man, integrity, and kindness. When viewing my x-rays, Dr. Coventry never examined disfigurement, he could SEE the wilderness of my soul.
57 orthopedic reconstructive surgeries to date. The re-wiring of my brain/body map is ongoing and continuous.
My wing/breath of being A/LIVE as an artist is a gift of incandescent wonder and awe – and, in turn, my offering to the world of hymns, gospel songs and lullabies. The remarkable radiant people whose presences entered my life and evolved/unfolded into beloved, always blooming relationships are cherished and are my blesSINGS!
The PA of my orthopedic surgeon for my hands read the letter representing my brave parents’ concerns. She wept: ‘You were loved.’
I kept my Daddy’s and my Mom’s name of the time I was born: Johnson. To honor their courage, commitment, compassion, and radical HOPE for my life – I persevered.
Today, I turned the same age as my Mother when she died suddenly.
I had a day of quiet joy and HeartFIRE: imagining the hopes and dreams of my Mom and Daddy oh so so so so so many years ago. I took their torch and lifted the Excalibur from the stone because their love radiates in my heart, blood, bone, breath, and soul. ALWAYS.
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I x-skied for 3 hours with my K9, Zachary, through, around and around the sacred grounds of Vento Nature Sanctuary.
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BIRTHDAY astonishingly HaPpYhApPy FUN CELEBRATION:
The Minnesota Zoo
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Thank you!!!!!
https://catherineljohnson.wordpress.com/about/
GRACE LOVE.
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HERHYMNS: BE BRAVE Catherine L. Johnson 2013
CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 
I am deeply touched to read your writings of your life’s journey, thanks to the brave perseverance and deep love your parents showed for you from before you were born. You honor them by keeping them alive through your writings…and by bearing their name: Johnson!