Completely lost in his music, Johnny seemed to see nothing and no one around him. How rare it is to find a person doing what they were born to do – doing what they love. And what a gift they are, a reminder to us that life is more than success and numbers. Johnny Alston is one of those gifts to the world.

Suddenly, as if he had returned to the world, he looked up at me with a big smile ear to ear that made itself a mirror to those around him. “I fell in love with playing music at age 16 from the first note I played,” he tells me. He goes on to talk of his “best friend and second half” with the far-off look in his eyes of a man in love, preparing for their next adventure moving across the country – no real destination, with the only plan being that they would be together.

As I continued asking him about his life, he suddenly paused and asked, “you know you’re special, right?”
A heart full of hope has eyes to see the flowers blooming in every soul around them. May we all have eyes to see such things.