Hard as it is to believe, it’s been a year since Drake Hogestyn passed away on September 28, 2024 — just a day away from his 71st birthday. In the immediate aftermath of his death following a battle with pancreatic cancer, co-stars shared their fond recollections of the actor, who’d played Days of Our Lives’ John Black since 1986. The show itself set in motion the storyline that would lay to rest his beloved character. And all of us dealt with the painful reality that we’d already seen him light up the screen for the last time.
How Can We All Honor Hogestyn?
And now? What are we left with? Taking into consideration the former baseball player’s advice to always swing for the fences, I think it’s more than bittersweet memories and cherished VHS tapes of John’s epic romance with true love Marlena Evans. It’s inspiration. Instead of simply feel sad when we think of John and his adored portrayer, maybe we can feel motivated and ask ourselves, “What would John Black do?”
So often lately, it can feel like all is lost, like the world has gone mad, like words such as “empathy” and “sanity” have become the forbidden four-letter kind. But if we take to heart Hogestyn and John’s approach to difficult, even seemingly impossible circumstances, we’ll step up to bat again and again and keep right on swinging. We won’t give up. We’ll keep on trying, doing our best to summon up the same “incredible strength and determination” that his family said he did as he fought cancer.
A John-Worthy Plan of Action
Whether we can change the whole world for the better, we can’t know. But I suspect that Hogestyn would say that we can certainly change it, even if it’s only in a small way, for everyone whose path we cross in a day. We can be kind. We can be understanding. And whether we take down a supervillain on par with the likes of Stefano DiMera or learn that we were brainwashed into thinking we’re someone we’re not, we can be somebody’s hero.
