Inspirational Speech By Brock Johnson who escaped the family curse, only to be faced with his own mortality at a young age. In this Christmas saga, he poignantly recounts how he had to overcome death to find the true meaning of life.
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00:00 The reason that my mom and I were so close was
00:03 because I was a gift to her.
00:07 She was a gift to me.
00:10 I remember being like four or five years old
00:12 and walking down the stairs
00:14 and they had all these different Christmas lights on it.
00:17 And I just remember when all the lights would be turned off
00:20 and I would be always so scared at night.
00:22 It was okay around the Christmas and the holiday season
00:25 because it wouldn't be dark in the house.
00:28 There was always those beautiful colored lights.
00:31 Every year for Christmas,
00:33 we would literally have our decorations up
00:35 for like three months.
00:36 And every time we pulled out an ornament,
00:37 we'd think about it.
00:39 So I open up the box and I grab and I look in there
00:46 and it's this little white angel
00:49 and it just had a date on it.
00:50 I just didn't know what that was.
00:52 And I just remember asking my mother,
00:54 like, what are these?
00:55 Because why are there dates on these?
00:58 She's like, those are your brothers.
00:59 And I just was like, where are they?
01:01 And she said, they're in heaven.
01:04 So when I get to meet them,
01:07 she said, they're looking out over you.
01:09 I just remember going to my room that night and crying
01:17 and I just wanted to meet them.
01:19 Apparently they were with me, but I didn't.
01:22 I just wanted to hug them.
01:25 So the relationship with my mother was close
01:27 because she had lost two children previously.
01:30 Just, she was just there for literally everything
01:33 in my life.
01:34 She would make sure I got to school.
01:36 She would make sure I get to basketball, choir.
01:39 She's been that rock.
01:40 She's always been there.
01:42 I know that regardless of what I do,
01:45 that she'll be there to love me.
01:46 There's been a current of infant mortality in my family.
01:52 And I think that the way that losing both
01:55 of my brothers affected her was,
01:57 it gave her a view of the world that no matter what you do
02:00 and how hard you try,
02:01 that you don't have any say over what happens in life.
02:05 Even if you do everything right and you cared so much
02:07 that you can't change the outcome.
02:09 Now, so in college, my health started to decline.
02:17 I remember laying in my bed and being so sick.
02:22 My left hand was way weaker than my right hand.
02:25 What's going on here?
02:29 So, all right, my limbs are starting to go numb.
02:31 Maybe I need to get my circulation going.
02:36 So I did and I started to run and just all of a sudden,
02:41 I would get really, really lightheaded.
02:44 I stood up, took a deep breath, took my inhaler.
02:49 And I breathed out just boom, just boom.
02:55 Like somebody hit me in the back of the head
02:56 with a baseball bat.
02:58 What happened was I ended up falling down the stairs
03:00 and lost consciousness, that,
03:03 and I just remember screaming and nobody was home.
03:05 And I went to a doctor,
03:06 like that part of my heart was failing.
03:09 It didn't work properly.
03:11 And it was because my chest was so messed up
03:14 that it was pressing in on my heart.
03:16 I mean, people with a similar condition to what I had
03:20 die at 25 to 30 years old.
03:22 And that scared me.
03:25 My mother got diagnosed with breast cancer
03:28 right at the same time that my health condition
03:30 was deteriorating.
03:32 My mom had to get a mastectomy
03:35 where basically they removed both of her breasts
03:38 and I was going to have to get a new chest.
03:42 Like they're gonna break all the bones,
03:44 cut off my pectoral muscles and reform it all.
03:46 So we were both gonna have to go through major surgeries.
03:50 And that was when it really, really sunk in.
03:55 My mom was scared.
03:56 But I think she was more scared for me
04:00 because of what had happened.
04:02 She had lost both of her baby boys.
04:05 And she was afraid of losing me.
04:10 I just remember her before I went into the operating room,
04:13 just being there.
04:14 But she was there to just hold my hand
04:18 and tell me that I was okay.
04:19 That's the biggest thing that I learned from her
04:23 was even if there's no sign of hope, you never know.
04:28 There might be something in there that you can't see.
04:32 (soft music)
04:34 I woke up and I had no problems.
04:43 Never had a heart rush again.
04:44 Had all the control in my limbs.
04:47 Hi sweetie.
04:48 How you feeling?
04:50 Wiggle your toes for me, they're so cute.
04:52 I don't remember any particular,
04:57 no, I don't remember any particular conversations.
04:59 I just remember hugging her.
05:00 (soft music)
05:03 I realized I was forced to choose the things
05:08 that were only really truly important to me.
05:11 I'm 26 years old,
05:13 but I feel like I've only truly been alive for four
05:17 because I've had more memorable moments
05:19 in the past four years
05:21 than I have in the first 22 years of my life.
05:24 Mom's got a smile.
05:26 She had just gotten her surgery.
05:28 Everything turned out to be fine.
05:30 We'll be with them this year for Christmas.
05:33 And my family collected memories in the form of ornaments.
05:38 And every year we get one for the year
05:40 that she's free of breast cancer.
05:42 Your life is just a series of moments.
05:46 And we all have a limited amount of moments left,
05:50 but we take for granted how many we have left.
05:52 But when you get closer
05:53 and you realize there might not be that many left,
05:56 now it's different.
05:57 And you say, well, God, I got to spend those really good.
06:01 (gentle music)
06:04 (birds chirping)
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06:40 (gentle music)
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06:45 (gentle music)
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