The Rites of Life: Keeping On

By Liz Barry | Audio slideshow by Kim Raff

Jennis Johnson leans at a jaunty slant against a shopping cart. There’s a chair nearby, but the 77-year-old insists on standing through his six-hour shift as a greeter at the Bedford Wal-Mart.

Sometimes his body betrays him, and his torso convulses in a hard, raspy cough.

But not today. Today is a good day.



Jennis salutes customers with a smile. At 5 feet 8 inches, he is lean of build and long of face. He has short white hair and a pencil-thin mustache.

Friends and family know him as “Little Man,” the nickname his father gave him at birth.

With his shift almost over, Jennis peers through the sliding glass doors at the bustling parking lot. A woman walks in. His eyes flicker in recognition.

“How are you doing, Little Man,” she says.

Jennis extends his hand.

“Oh, I’m doing fairly good,” he says with a chuckle, “for an old man.”

The will to live

During the past 10 years, Jennis has been treated first for prostate, then for lung cancer. In April, his doctor referred him to the Bedford Hospice Center with a prognosis of three to six months to live.

Spring melted into summer, summer into fall. More than seven months later, Jennis pushes forward with a firm resolve to live.

He works regular shifts at Wal-Mart (no more than 20 hours a week), to get out of the house. He walks his dog every day, sometimes for close to a mile. He spends quiet evenings with his wife, Frances, and on weekends he visits family and attends church.

His Christian faith, wife and dog, a chocolate brown Dachshund named Hershey, are his foundation. Without them, he says, he would not have lived this long.

Sometimes, his lungs burn like fire, a pain so severe he can barely stand it. Shortness of breath overtakes him in flashes, sparked by walking or talking too much.

Some mornings, he thinks to himself, “This is it.” But instead of staying in bed, he rises to start the day.

In rare moments, he becomes reflective about the life he has lived.

“I’ve lived a good life,” he says one day in the Wal-Mart foyer, amid the clatter of shopping carts. “I never have harmed nobody that I know of, you know.”

A few beats pass.

“Someday, I know I got to go, and I prepare for it.”

The hard days

Hershey barks wildly when Jennis walks into his Bedford home one dim afternoon in mid-November.

Jennis barely slept last night. His body was hurting, but he went to work.

A cold rain drums the window. Frances fixes supper in the kitchen.

“Sit down and catch your breath,” she says firmly.

Jennis sits straight up. His chest rises and falls in a quick staccato. He is silent except for the heavy sigh of his breathing.

Frances watches with a wary eye. Within minutes, his breathing regains its slow, regular rhythm.

His breathing has been more strained in recent days. Frances is worried. Jennis might be, too, but he seldom admits it.

Frances releases Hershey from the bedroom, and the small dog scurries over to Jennis and paws his lap.

Jennis wags a raggedy pink bear in front of Hershey’s snout.

“Play me a song, Hershey. Play me a song!”

Hershey gnaws the bear until it plays “Jesus Loves Me,” then looks up at his owner.

Jennis smiles.

A full life

Jennis has lived most of his life in Bedford, where he was born and raised.

At age 10, Jennis trained ponies for a Virginia horse trader. As a teenager, he pumped gas at Hilltop Service Station, his first real job. As an adult, he worked on the railroad, at a lumberyard, for a furniture company, at a grocery wholesale house.

He remembers when Bedford was segregated.

He was a pool shark, a boxer, and a soldier in the Korean War. His team is the Washington Redskins.

Jennis has no kids, but more nieces and nephews than he can count.

His first encounter with a debilitating condition came in 1985 when, after back surgery, doctors told him he had a 50/50 chance of walking again and disability was almost certain.

Within a month, Jennis was walking and had returned to work.

His battle with cancer began in 1998, when Jennis was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In 2003, Jennis — who smoked cigarettes for 60 years — was diagnosed with lung cancer.

In April, after years of treatments and medication and doctors’ appointments, Jennis decided to let the cancer run its course.

The news

Jennis is quiet before his doctor’s appointment at the Carilion Cancer Center in Roanoke on Dec. 1. He paces in the waiting room, then sits beside Frances.

The nurse checks his weight, blood pressure and oxygen level, then leads him into exam room 7.

Dr. David Buck reports the results of Jennis’ CT scan, taken the week before.

Good news, the doctor says. There is no sign of progression of the lung cancer since the last treatment. As for the shortness of breath, Buck recommends that Jennis see his pulmonary doctor about a tweak of his medication.

Jennis is quiet as he absorbs the news.

“See you in another six months,” Buck says.

As Jennis walks down the hall to the lobby, a grin crosses his face.

“I’m so happy, I could do a dance,” he says.

“I would love to see you cut it up,” Frances says with a laugh.

They schedule an appointment for June 1.

Keeping on

Four days later, Jennis buzzes with excitement as he recounts his doctor’s appointment to Sue Downhill, an RN with Bedford Hospice Center.

“You talk about somebody who was happy, I was happy,” Jennis says.

“So I might live a few more days.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Downhill says with a belly laugh. “You’re going to live to dance another jig.”

Frances is more subdued. She is concerned about his weight, his strained breathing.

Although he has had a reprieve, the couple continues with hospice care.

The RN checks Jennis’ vital signs and updates his charts. As they banter, Hershey scampers about the kitchen.

The conversation turns to Jennis’ decade-long fight with cancer.

“It’s never put me in bed all day yet. Thank God for that,” he says, pounding a fist on the table.

He continues in a quiet voice.

“Well, I tell you, Sue. It hasn’t been easy now. It ain’t been easy.”

When Sue leaves, Jennis lounges on a big green chair in the living room.

Tonight, he rests. Tomorrow, he works the 7 a.m. shift.