Chris Johnson is alive when he serves Detroit
Before he suffered two collapsed lungs.
Before he had a portion of one of his lungs removed.
And long before hospital confinement prevented him from being with his family for Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2020, Chris Johnson spent most of his childhood on Marlowe Street on Detroit’s west side, where he began to establish an intimate relationship with his community.
“I had a paper route (Detroit News) from the age of 12 to 17; it was an everyday job with door-to-door delivery and I established relationships with my customers,” recalled the 57-year-old Johnson, who attended Burns Elementary School, Cadillac Middle School, Region 4 Open Middle School, Cooley High School, and, for a brief time, Redford High School (Class of 1983) while growing up on Marlowe. “I was also in JA (Junior Achievement) and the Explorers Program at Mount Carmel Hospital, which was volunteer work and I enjoyed it. You could say that all of those activities in the community, outside of my home, strengthened me.”
Johnson discovered just how much “strength” he could draw from his community when his health steadily — at some points rapidly — deteriorated after he tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 15, 2020, almost exactly one month before the first deliveries of the COVID-19 vaccines began. Johnson would spend a combined 80 days in two hospitals, one skilled-nursing facility and one rehabilitation center. At one point, Johnson said he was pressured by a hospital staff member who wanted him to sign a DNR (do not resuscitate) order, which Johnson declined to do. And on several occasions, Johnson said people around him spoke like “they were preparing for me to die.”
But through the ordeal; during a period of time when risk was still associated with group gatherings; Johnson, who today is a community liaison for Wayne County Commissioner Irma Clark-Coleman and the president of the Bagley Community Council, found a way to reconnect with his community through church services he watched live on Facebook and Bible study classes he participated in via Zoom. There also were community meetings (Bagley Community Council, Detroit Department of Neighborhoods, Detroit District 2) that he regularly attended virtually.
“I would see all of the people and the faces, and say to myself: ‘Don’t count me out,’ ” said Johnson, who kept his Zoom camera on because he felt it was important for others to see his COVID reality, which included being hooked up to hoses, which allowed him to breathe.
“I still wanted to be a part of my church services (Greater Seth Temple Sanctuary of Praise Church of God In Christ) and I still wanted to be a part of my community. Having something to do and something to be a part of, I think that was the key.”
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An ordained elder, Johnson also points to “constant” calls he received from his pastor, Bishop Philip Jackson, who helped him to lock in on the goal of “going through that door” of whatever facility he was being cared for at a particular time and returning home. And during moments alone, Johnson thought back to an extra prayerful day, early on in his COVID journey, when Johnson was in what he described as a “hospice-like” unit. But this time, a hospital staff member offered him an uplifting message: “If you can make it through the night, I think you’re going to be all right.” Johnson took those words and tried as hard as he could to “activate” his faith.
“When I say I prayed, I prayed, I fell asleep praying,” said Johnson, whose prayers were finally answered when he returned home on Feb. 5, 2021.
The man who came back to his beloved Bagley Community in northwest Detroit was far from robust, as Johnson sat in a wheelchair and was hooked up to oxygen. Navigating stairs within his house was out of the question upon his return, so Johnson learned how to make himself as comfortable as possible on an air mattress downstairs. Johnson also lost 80 pounds during his COVID struggle. But once back home, his appetite for community service returned in full. The Bagley Community Council presidency and the work he is doing for Clark-Coleman represent community responsibilities and duties he accepted after returning home. And as his community work increased, his wheelchair, walker, cane and oxygen tank all became things of the past.
“You have to have a reason to get up in the morning and I live to serve my community,” said Johnson, who also has been a member of the Bates Academy Dads Club for the past six years. “I’m enjoying what I’m doing now, and I’m enjoying helping people get the resource information they need.”
Johnson started working for Clark-Coleman in January and he came to her attention due to the service he provided the Bagley Community Council, which he has been a member of since 2008. While working for a Wayne County Commissioner means serving the entire city of Detroit, Johnson says he will never lessen his volunteer community involvement with two Detroit schools he holds dear — Bagley Elementary School and Bates Academy. That means daily visits to Bagley to help out in any way he can, such as on Thursday, when he helped the PTA establish a board, which he will be a member of. And if anyone wants to find him between 3:25 p.m and 3:50 p.m., Mondays through Friday, that would be the corner of Wyoming and Pembroke, where he makes sure students from Bates get safely across Wyoming. The scene played out Wednesday, when Johnson and Karlton Akins, clad in neon yellow vests, performed like a well-oiled machine, as Akins wielded a stop sign and Johnson worked a bright yellow whistle, which he says can be heard inside any nearby car, even if music is playing.
Johnson and Akins will never receive, nor will ever desire payment for their good deeds after school at Bates. But that in no way diminishes the value of the service they provide, yet there are some people that have defined the value of volunteer service to this region in dollars. On Friday, citing statistics for the combined Detroit, Warren and Dearborn region provided by AmeriCorps, Julie Durham, a senior consultant for the Talent & Economic team at Lansing-headquartered Public Sector Consultants, said in 2020 alone, 78.8 million hours of volunteer service were performed with an estimated value of $1.9 billion.
“For communities, volunteers are like planks on a bridge that get you from one side to the other,” said Durham, a former development director for Habitat for Humanity in Lansing.
A mention of the $1.9 billion figure to Johnson on Friday afternoon produced a “Wow.” But shortly afterward, the simple but vital volunteer community service of getting children safely from one side of Wyoming to the other was revisited, when he was reminded of a speeding car that came through a red light at 3:49 p.m. on Wednesday toward the end of his safety patrol duty with Akins. There were no children crossing at the time and it was far from the first time that Johnson had witnessed a car run a light at the corner. But two days later he was shaken, nonetheless.
“It scares me,” said Johnson, who also is a husband to Shawnese Laury and a father to Christina, 32; Christopher, 26, Camille, 19, and 13-year-old Candace Johnson. “I don’t know every kids’ name that crosses at that corner, but they all know me, and we smile and we talk. I had a young lady come up to me and say: ‘Hi, Mr. Johnson, I know your daughter (Candace) and your daughter is my friend.’ It would hurt my heart if one of those kids got hit crossing the street.
“When God allowed me to get well, I realized that it wasn’t for me, it was for others. Everyone needs someone to help them with something; and helping someone may not make their life perfect, but it makes it better. And that’s why I do what I do.”
Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and lifelong lover of Detroit culture in all of its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city’s neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at: stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott's stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Losing part of a lung to COVID made Detroit man hungrier to serve city
