John William Brownsord

April 16, 1971 – May 11, 2026

John William Brownsord passed away on May 11, 2026, after experiencing a cardiac event during a run on April 30.

Running had always been one of the ways John felt most alive. 

John was born on April 16, 1971, in Providence, Rhode Island, and lived throughout New England before eventually making his way to Orlando, Florida, in 2012, where he built a life full of movement, music, service, friendship, practical devotion, and love.

He is survived by his parents, Gail and David Brownsord; his sister, Caroline Cox; his wife, Patricia Combs Brownsord; and our fur baby, Eva the Wonder Dog Brownsord, who was one of the great loves of his life.

Celebration of Life details are still being planned. Updates will be shared through our social channels and website.

But those are only the facts. And John was so much more than facts.

John was my foundation.

He was the steady, even-keel, solid, stable man who made me feel like I could do anything. Truly anything. He made our home feel safe, comfortable, clean, stocked, and cared for. He handled the basic needs of life with such quiet consistency that I did not always have to think about them. He just had it covered.

To be loved by John was to feel at home.

He was practical in the best way. People counted on him for clear thinking, steadiness, and the ability to make things work. When he served as president of our neighborhood association, he helped bring residents, business owners, and community members together in a stronger way than ever before. During the pandemic, when everything had to shift, John became the face and force behind keeping the neighborhood association steady, connected, and moving forward.

That was John. If he introduced something, organized something, or improved something, it was because he genuinely believed it would make people’s lives better.

And he did like things better.

Not flashy. Not wasteful. Just… a touch extra.

Beer in a glass. Better yet, a chilled glass.

“Your finest wine,” he would say, right before I cut him off with, “Absolutely not.”

After we stopped drinking, it became the finest coffee, the finest chocolate, the finest little pleasures. He loved refinement. He loved quality. He bought things that lasted. Some of our furniture has been with us since 2013 because John chose well.

I used to call him my princess. Or bougie.

Eventually, he fully embraced it. He got the Marie shirt from The Aristocats that said “Cat,” and his Instagram handle became @BougieLivingWithJohn Brownsord.

And honestly? Perfect. No notes.

John had steely blue eyes that reminded me of Paul Newman, especially when he wore the green sweater I loved so much. He had the sweetest laugh-giggle. He had great style. He owned bright blue shoes, dark blue leather shoes with the matching belt, blue boots, polished Bostonians he kept looking brand new, and a gold bow tie he bought for a gala because yellow was not quite right — it needed to be black and gold.

He could walk Eva in gym shorts and a T-shirt, then turn around and put on a suit and take me to a gala, a concert, a fancy dinner, or Disney Springs like it was no big thing.

He was polished and relaxed at the same time.

He was also a professional napper. The man could fall asleep anywhere. In a chair. In a car. With his neck at an angle that made the rest of us physically uncomfortable just looking at him. But he was out. Completely relaxed. Fully committed to the nap.

John cared fiercely about peace and quiet. Or, if not quiet, then music had to be good. Smooth. Mellow. Jazz. John Mayer. U2. Coldplay. Jon Batiste. Van Morrison. Music that made the world feel more beautiful.

He loved the Montreal Jazz Festival. He loved New Orleans. He loved when we bougied it up with VIP tickets to see Jon Batiste, Mumford & Sons, and Trombone Shorty. He loved a good dinner, a good walk, a sunny day with a breeze, and being outside with nowhere urgent to be.

Some of our best days were simple: wandering Epcot, walking through Animal Kingdom, strolling the Tampa Riverwalk from one end to the other, stopping for lunch, walking more, having dinner, and calling that a perfect day.

John knew how to live inside a moment.

He did not believe in waiting for retirement to enjoy life. His main Facebook catchphrase under his name says it all:

Grip life, and don’t let go of it!

He meant that.

When John was 17, he was in a major accident and had to relearn how to walk, talk, read, write, eat, and live inside his own body again. He never used that as a crutch. He never wanted pity. He simply rebuilt.

And then he kept moving.

Skiing. Tennis. Cross-country racing. Soccer. Soccer refereeing. Running. Walking Eva. Push-ups in the park. Pull-ups. Exercise vests. 5Ks. He used the body he had fought to reclaim.

He took care of himself. He paid attention. He learned. He adjusted. He believed that once you know better, you do better.

That was one of his phrases, and it was also one of his codes.

He was always learning something. John earned degrees in accounting and economics, followed by an MBA in investment management, but education was never something he considered “finished.” He kept studying, growing, adapting, and reinventing himself throughout his life.

He earned finance certifications, insurance licenses, Tableau certifications, and taught himself new systems and technologies whenever curiosity or opportunity called. Most recently, he had begun taking AI courses through Harvard — something he was genuinely excited about.

He also loved joking that he had “attended Harvard” because he once took a Spanish class there. Which, technically, was true. And that kind of cheeky accuracy was very John.

One of his goals was to make enough money that I could keep doing meaningful work with nonprofits and not have to worry so much about the money part. That was his love language too: provision, support, steadiness, “I’ve got this.”

We met at Seasons 52 in Altamonte Springs, in a completely random moment at a completely random time. (If you want to hear both sides of our story, we did a podcast episode.)

I was talking to a friend about how I was going to break up with someone, and John finally leaned over and said, “You’re trying too hard for justifications. You don’t have to tell him anything. I’ve had plenty of women break up with me and not tell me why.”

That was the beginning.

We shut the place down. I told him we ought to be friends. We went on our first date the next weekend.

He was a grown-up. A real one. He cooked. He liked jazz and wine. He had boundaries. He was comfortable in his own skin. He was not intimidated by me being loud, successful, gregarious, and about 95% extrovert.

He was an extroverted introvert who would absolutely say, “No. That is too many things in one weekend. I will do one of those things.”

And I needed that.

He taught me not to pack everything into one day. He taught me to stop overloading every weekend. He taught me to sit by the lake and actually look at the lake. To smell the flowers I was standing in front of instead of planning the next flowers I wanted to see.

He taught me presence.

Our love was not shallow. It was not casual. It was sacred, lived-in, practical, funny, intimate, and bone-deep.

We survived real things together. We survived the heartbreak of miscarriage. We survived hard decisions. We survived career changes, family dynamics, the pandemic, grief, growth, and all the ordinary, unglamorous realities of marriage.

And we also had so much fun.

Paris. Disney. New Orleans. Grenada. Lake Chelan. Smugglers’ Notch. Jamaica. Universal. Barcelona. Twin Farms, Vermont. Salt Lake City. Costa Rica. Montana. Fancy dinners. Date nights. Books. Walks. Music. Movies. Inside jokes. Random cards. Holding hands.

Always holding hands.

We held hands crossing streets. We held hands driving. We held hands at the movies. We held hands any time we were wandering around anywhere. And when we got into bed at the same time, he would let me hold his hand while we fell asleep.

Not if he fell asleep first. Let’s be clear. Then I was “bothering him.”

But if I timed it right, I could get in there, hold his hand, and fall asleep faster and deeper because I knew I was safe.

That is one of the things I will miss most.

His hand.

His presence.

The sound of him being in the house.

Him napping across from me while I learned some new thing on the couch. Him walking Eva with me for two hours on a Saturday. Him letting me prattle on about astrology, Human Design, Gene Keys, nonprofits, friends, family, Celestial weather, life, all of it — and then adding his two cents in that grounded John way.

The simple, mundane things are what replay first.

The blue couch hangouts.

The College Park walks.

The date night journal.

Reading Atlas of the Heart and talking about emotions.

Looking through the photo books I made for each year of our life together.

Laughing at Eva.

Watching him love her.

John once said he never knew he could love something as much as he loved Eva. She softened him completely. She was his baby, and if another dog dared to affront her, well, that was one of the rare times John’s calm exterior might crack.

John made me feel safe enough to be all of me.

Beautiful. Messy. Brilliant. Ridiculous. Dreaming too big. Crying too hard. Planning too much. Laughing too loud.

He saw the best and worst of me, and I saw the best and worst of him.

That is marriage.

And I loved that about us.

John was my bestest, bestest friend in the whole wide world.

He was the best part of my life.

And we really did squeeze the juice out of the orange.

I still do not know how to make sense of a world where the healthiest, strongest, most disciplined person I knew could suffer a cardiac event during a run and be gone eleven days later. The entire village is floored. We do not have all the answers yet.

But I do know this:

John lived what he believed.

He moved his body. He took care of himself. He kept learning. He invested in quality. He chose the good dinner. He wore the blue shoes. He bought the concert tickets. He walked the river. He held my hand. He loved the dog. He served his neighborhood. He supported my work. He did not wait for someday.

He gripped life.

And he did not let go of it.

So maybe the way we honor John is not by making his life smaller or easier to summarize.

Maybe we honor him by living a little more like he did.

Buy the good coffee.

Use the chilled glass.

Take the walk.

Wear the bow tie.

Listen to the music.

Learn the thing.

Hold the hand.

Say yes to the trip.

Stop waiting for retirement.

And when you know better, do better.

I love you, John Brownsord.

Thank you for loving me so well.

Thank you for being my foundation, my home, my hand to hold, my bougie living partner, my calm in the chaos, my bestest friend.

I will grip this life differently now because of you.

And I will never, ever let go of what we were.