"It's about trying to save the next kid!"
Emily Johnson, mother of KJ, Kailin Johnson, described feeling the portrait of her son before actually seeing it; the feeling of being drawn to it. She spent a very long time with the portrait when she first saw it in the exhibition, which is currently at Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, PA. KJ was her only son and her best friend who was taken from her at only 16 years of age. While extending an act of kindness to a friend he was killed by a bullet meant for someone else. Artist Cathleen Cohen, a visual artist and poet, incorporated words from KJ’s family in her portrait of KJ. She also chose to use a reference photo of KJ that captured his openness and gentle demeanor. Emily, while being interviewed at Beth Am Israel on Friday by Mateo Iodonisi of 6ABC in Philadelphia, told many anecdotes and stories about her son that gave us an oral portrait of a bright young man, kind to a fault, and intent on going to college. He played pretty much every sport offered at his high school. One story, told to me by his aunt, epitomized his selflessness. He and his “twin”, (actually his cousin) who was two months older, went for their driver’s license text together. He passed, she didn’t. He told his mother not to tell anyone that he had passed until she had. For a sixteen year old boy to show that restraint is remarkable and so thoughtful!
Emily doesn’t, in her words, grieve the normal way. She has thrown herself into the activism of mentoring and hosting free community events and sports tournaments. “It’s about trying to save the next kid. If we don’t care, they won’t care about themselves.”
When we met on Friday, Emily was literally about to give birth to her second son. He will be named Ryder Koi Johnson and he will have an awesome mother!
We, all of us, need to work work to make the changes in our world that will afford Ryder a peaceful, productive environment in which to grow and thrive. Emily and Ryder will honor KJ’s legacy and we all need to support that by doing what we can to change the destructive systems in place now. The reasons for the shootings that take so many lives are heartbreakingly mundane and avoidable: mistaken identity, perceived slight, stupid argument, accidental, etc. The common denominator is the availability of a gun. Thank you for taking action however you can.
