My sister Judy, and I are younger than Terry so we weren’t there in the really early years. I can only tell you the rest of the story through my own eyes.

I remember Terry walking to school. Skinny little guy, with his hair slicked back into a duck tail, his thumbs in his belt loops, refusing to wear a jacket. He was ‘the Fonz’ years before the Fonz was even thought of…lol. Seriously, until the last couple of years, he looked like he had just stepped out of 1962.

Terry was 9 years older than I was and 13 years older than our little sister, so we never hung in the same circles or had a lot of social interaction other than family stuff. We were just little kids and so was he, but he was already ‘running’, doing teenage things. Often my sister and I watched some of his antics, in wide eyed, slack jawed wonder and our parents threw up their hands in frustration.

One Christmas, he and one of his friends were cutting Christmas trees and selling them. He brought one home. Mom said it was an absolutely perfect tree, and she was excitedly talking about it’s perfection, when the police showed up at the door. Turned out the boys had been cutting cultured trees out of people’s yards.

Another time, he and his friends ( they were only about 8 or 9) built a Tee-pee on the railroad tracks and the railway police came to the door. Our dad was furious. Our mom felt the kid was headed for a life of crime. It was high drama.

As he got older things sometimes got darker and more serious and there were many, many times when we didn’t even know where he was. Or IF he was. The last 30 years or so though, thankfully, he lived in Cranbrook. We knew where he was. We knew he was okay.

He desperately fought COPD for the last several years until it finally took him from us on Friday, Dec 19, 2025. Right to the very end though, he was slowly ‘gasping’ out wildly colourful life stories that I knew nothing about. We walked such a different path in our lives and at the end all I could really do was just walk him home. I held his hand until he got to the gate.

He was predeceased by his mom Elsie and dad Helgi Johannson. He is survived by his sisters Jacquie Clinton(Kenny), Judy Sims(Ed), son Jason Johannson, 2 grandchildren, Nate and Bri Johannson, and 5 nieces, Bonnie, Brandy, Bobbi, Mandy, Sarah.

We are going to miss you so much our Wiley Coyote of a brother. Come visit us in our dreams. xoxox