Brian Johnson reads the letter he wrote to his brother Rick before Rick died of cancer. The letter recalls their shared memories: baseball, free throws, coaching, being best man, weekend visits. Johnson wrote it to say thank you while Rick could still hear it.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic Plus One. In the last couple 1s we've been talking about Randy Pausch's powerful last lecture. Today I want to talk about the last letter of wrote to my brother. Quick context. As we discussed, Randy Pausch was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer. So was my brother. After doing everything I could to support my brother and his family after a two year battle, we knew he only had weeks then days to live. As we discuss in a plus one on gratitude letters and visits expressing our appreciation to others in the form of a letter that we read to them in person and can be an incredibly powerful experience for both people involved. So I wrote my brother a letter of appreciation and I read it to him on what was literally his deathbed. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life, one that I will cherish forever and one that I am so happy I experienced as it allowed me to end my relationship with my brother with a deep sense of connection and love. I would like to share that letter with you today as a tribute to my brother and I hope as an inspiration for you to consider doing something similar if there is someone in your life who you think would appreciate hearing how much you appreciate them. Now I also shared this letter at my brother's end of life celebration. A little more context. I am the youngest of five kids, good old Catholic family. My mom got married to my dad at 17 and had my brother when she was 18. Then she had three girls. Then after waiting 13 years, my brother finally had a little brother, me. The title of my letter to my brother was Love you brother Rick. My dear brother Rick, I want you to know how much I appreciate you. Thank you for supporting me for the last 45 years. I know you waited a long time to have a little brother and I want you to know. And he and I are sitting there, I'm laid up next to him in his bed. Alexander's sitting there right next to me holding my hand. Sweetest moment. We're laughing as we go through this thing. I said to him, I want you to know that I think you've been a great big brother. I was reading a book on gratitude the other day, you know me and they talked about the power of writing a letter of gratitude to someone who has supported you and made your Life better. I immediately thought of you before anybody else. Then they asked a bunch of questions, including who taught you how to throw a baseball? And I laughed. Then I started to cry. I told my brother, I'm not sure if you're the one who taught me how to throw a baseball. You probably did. So thank you. But I'm pretty sure you were involved in making sure my first word ever was ball. Now all that happened not too long before I got the chance to help you with your newspaper route. Check us out in that picture, as I thought about you and baseball and sports and reflected on their question, the image that came to mind when was you helping me practice free throws before I entered a free throw contest? When I was in eighth grade. I don't know if you remember, but I must have been 12 or so, which means you must have been around 25 if I'm remembering correctly. We cruised on over to the local park. Did we walk or drive in your sweet blue Celica, which I had probably just waxed. And you rebounded countless shots and delivered bullet passes to me so I didn't have to move an inch as I took shot after shot after shot. And as I reflected on that memory, I thought to myself, what 25 year old guy does that for his little brother? Especially seeing that you lived an hour and a half away at the time. A good man is who does that. That's who. And by the way, brother Rick, we crushed that free throw competition tying for first place with something like 22 or 23 out of 25 free throws made go us. Then I thought of you coaching my little league baseball teams. Coach Rick, before he was the coach Rick. My brother Rick was a coach for his kids. He was kind of known in town as Coach Rick. Now I can still see you down there on the third baseline cheering me on as I made my strike zone invisible. I was tiny, always the smallest kid on the team and I tried to rip one down the line in your direction. I'm not sure if I managed to do much more than walk or bunt, then steal second base, but. But that wasn't because you weren't there to bring out my best. Then I thought of all the weekend trips to your place over an hour away where we'd play darts all night long and drive back with the sunroof open and you brushing your hair in style. Oh, the days when we both had hair. Then I thought about hanging off my big brother's arms, which were so superhero big and strong that I couldn't even wrap my hands around them. Then I imagined watching you play softball and marveling at your boom and home runs and Gold Glove, like shortstop plays. Then I thought of the honor of being your best man. How was that 25 years ago? Then I fast forwarded through countless other moments of connection to the first chat we had about my second business. I was raising money. I got to the end of whatever my pitch was, and you said, brother Brian, I don't care what you're doing. It's you. It's gonna work. I'm in. That was one of the most touching moments of my Life. To feel 100% unconditionally supported and to know how much you believed in me. All that to say, I love you. I appreciate you. I want you to know that I wouldn't be who I am today without you and your support. Thank you, brother. Love, your little brother, Brian. P.S. we got some other pictures in the plus one you can check out. That is my last letter to my brother, and that is a tribute to him and hopefully an inspiration to you to create a deep, deep connection with someone you love. Not someday Today.
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