Isaac "Ike" John-Johnson Memorial Fund

Hi everyone. This is Rayla, Isaac's daughter.

In December 2022, my Dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer. It is only considered "grade 4" and has a 6 month-1 year prognosis; there is no known cure. I've been by my Dad's side throughout this journey. He underwent various and multiple changes in his personality and physical abilities, many of which were hard to witness. We all know what a brilliant and autonomous man my Father was. He had the brain tumor removed TWICE this year-- once in January and again in June. After multiple complications following the second operation, we opted to move him into hospice care and I was granted power of attorney. He stayed sharp, funny, and moody until the very end, but in the last month he had mostly been gentle and pensive.

Since I was young, he’s made it abundantly clear he did not want to be kept alive by machines. Despite how difficult it was for him to grapple with and accept his own mortality— there were moments of denial, regret, anger, confusion; moments of serenity and acceptance as well— he held onto this belief steadfast. There were stretches where he would be unable to speak at all, or only 3-4 words would come out on a loop though you could see he was trying to say something more, something else; you could see the frustration on his face and hear it in his voice, which was one of the most painful things I have ever had to witness. Some days he was ready to go, others he was upbeat and optimistic. One thing is for certain— he was in no pain. As we watched his body and memory wither away, he was adamant he was “fine” because he did not feel any pain.

He had violent and long-lasting seizures starting around 4:11pm on Friday September 22nd and died at 4:11am on Monday September 25th. 60 hours, and 4:11 reduces to 6. 6 is the number of healing. A true numerologist till the end.

I am fundraising to pay for his end of life expenses. His cremation, urn, and expedited death certificate is around $2k. The rest of the money will be used so I can travel to Oklahoma with his ashes to have a memorial, hopefully with many of you. My brother and I will also be planning a memorial service in Los Angeles in the coming months.

Any additional funds will be used to dig myself out of some of the massive debt I’ve accrued this last year, since I have not worked consistently this year as I was on-call for my Dad.

Thank you for all the love and well wishes. I know he loved all the attention, ha!