On Tuesday, November 26th, 2024, Taylor Elise Johnson died as she lived - giving every last bit of herself to others, and without regard for consequences.

Born March 3rd, 1989 in Torrance, CA, Taylor was a menace and a Madonna from the beginning. Quiet, watchful, and highly unpredictable, you could find her on the highest branch of a tree, trying to rescue an injured animal, or running naked (save for the pink stripes of paint).

Growing up, she was a romantic and overachiever. Student of the year with presidential recognition, gifted in languages, and far too smart for her own good, Taylor was never content to be average. She exceeded expectations in both achievements and mishaps, her accomplishments and misadventures all notable.

When she was happy, she made giant paintings with lush, iridescent oil spills, dancing dandelions, scenes of color and freedom and peace. Her bedroom was a yellow so bright it overwhelmed.

When she was low, there was no reassurance louder than the instinct to flee.

She joined recovery efforts in Haiti, made a bed-sheet-escape from the third floor window of a mental institution. She cheered the ailing with the real Patch Adams, quit highschool weeks before she would have graduated salutatorian. She WWOOFed around the world befriending tarantulas, and somehow managed to flip a car going uphill. She rescued every stray and burned every bridge. An uncontainable force of nature, Taylor was benevolent and destructive in equal measure.

She never met a friend she couldn’t comfort, a man she couldn’t love, or a car she couldn’t crash.

Her sense of humor was unrivaled. When her insight combined with her wicked wit, she was playful, incisive, and hilarious. Being in her presence was magical, fun, humbling, and transformative.

She stole $10,000 from her boss and ran away to New Zealand, but managed to make up and pay it all back.

She remarkably eluded jail time until putting four cops on their asses for “checking her out“ while they responded to her indecent exposure, then counseled her fellow inmates.

My sister was many things - a generous soul, a gifted artist, and an untamed outlaw. She struggled with mental illness and addiction, and the better part of her last decade was spent unhoused in Los Angeles. Despite her circumstances and choices, she still had people telling me how much she helped them, about the beauty of her soul, and how selfless she could be.

For her actions, I can only find two motives, often seemingly in conflict: to know love and to feel free.

In her later years, she could be found more often in hospitals and holdings, rehabs and halfway houses, then in encampments on the streets (though certainly still on the highest branch, saving all the broken wings, and running naked). Many people offered her love and assistance, but the hopeful help from others always became a cage to escape.

Taylor’s death was as improbable and theatrical as her life. Hit by a train, miraculously revived at the hospital and unidentified for over a week, life support sustained her for 16 days until she passed gracefully in an operating room full of family and song before donating her organs.

We can’t know what proportions of intention and mistake led to her injuries, but loving Taylor has meant growing comfortable with duality. She was both all in and out the door before fully arriving. She had more and less self preservation than anyone I’ve ever known. Her empathy made her feel pain for others beyond bearing, her illnesses left her unmoved by the hurt she inflicted. A chameleon, Taylor was ever changed by her surroundings, and somehow always entirely herself.

No one else could save Taylor‘s life, not in the traditional or medical sense. But I like to think that her death managed what she had always wanted in her life. Her tenacity and her grit held her together long enough for us to say goodbye, to surround her in LOVE inescapable; for her illustrious liver and diligent kidneys to gift three other people their chance at life. I cannot think of a more fitting legacy for my firecracker of a sister, with her tank girl body and her generous heart.

And now her soul can rest: she knows love, she is free.

Taylor (35) is survived by her parents, Michael Patrick Johnson (67) and Cynthia Lynn Lamb (59); her step-mother, Irene Flotzinger (67); myself - her big seastar, Chelsey Kolma Casey (38), brother-in-law Patrick Michael Casey (38), nephew, Donovan Alder Casey (5), niece, Meredith Arden Casey (2); her younger sibling, Adrian Raine Orlando (29); her step-brother, Nickolas Wayne Orlando (44); her paternal grandfather, Richard Thomas Johnson (95); her maternal grandmother, Pauline Lamb-Boston (83); her partner of 5 years, Harry L. Solt; and an uncountable number of extended family and friends she has touched. No public services are planned, but you may commune with her in the sea or at the tombstone of an Unknown Stage Robber.

In lieu of flowers, we ask donations be made in Taylor’s memory to The People Concern.

The People Concern is a provider of, and advocate for, evidence-based solutions to the multi-faceted challenges inherent in homelessness and domestic violence, including housing, mental and medical health care, and substance abuse services. Among its many strengths are its trauma-informed, research-based programming design and its success with its permanent housing placements (92% never experience homelessness again).

https://www.thepeopleconcern.…

UPDATE 1/16/25: Taylor's liver went to a man in his 20s, her left kidney to a man in his 50s and her right to a woman in her 50s, all located in California. The three transplants were successful.  

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