When Things Don’t Make Sense
Remembering John Iskra: 03/21/1957 – 12/22/2025
While visiting family in Pennsylvania for the holidays, I began writing this piece intending to explore what it means to take aligned action, to embody one’s beliefs in the face of fear and incessant mental-looping.
Then a curveball came fast and fierce from left field, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
It was just a couple days before Christmas. We heard fire trucks, an ambulance, a helicopter overhead, and police sirens rushing eerily close to the home of someone we love, a neighbor from my childhood. My mother ran outside and said, “That is uncomfortably close to John’s house.” We both felt it immediately, something was wrong.
Another neighbor called soon after with the news that Uncle John, a kind man in our community and a landscaper who gave to so many, died in a tragic woodchipper accident. It was all over the internet and news within a couple hours.
I babysat his two children, Katrina and Brandon, as they were growing up. His wife, Aunt Holly, was devastated by the loss. Thankfully, she allowed us to visit the next morning so we could offer our love and support to her and the family, even if it was just to listen. Sitting with the family in their grief and shock was both gut-wrenching and an honor.
It just doesn’t make sense. He was 68, strong, still doing the work he loved, and preparing to slow down his landscaping business for a well-earned retirement. Just a week before he passed, he carried loads of firewood to my mother’s front gate to make it easier for her to move it to her shed.
The whole thing feels incomprehensible.
Anyone who knew him could easily share countless stories of his kindness to the community, to his neighbors, and to his family.
If prayer isn’t your thing, please hold the Iskra family in your thoughts with care and love. They are wonderful people who deserve support and compassion in this dark time of grief.
I wish I had something comforting to close with, but this is one of the hardest parts of life. The grief is pure love, and the tears release stress giving that love a voice.
May John rest in peace…
John Michael Iskra
MARCH 21, 1957 – DECEMBER 22, 2025
🕊️
OBITUARY