“They will fly me, like an angel/ To a place where I can rest/ When this begins, I'll let you know/ September when it comes.”

Johnny Cash spoke these prophetic words on his daughter, Rosanne Cash’s, album a mere six months before his death last Friday, Sept. 12. Cash died Friday morning of respiratory failure brought on by complications from diabetes. He was 71.

Cash began life as J.R. Cash because no one could agree on a first name for him. They had no idea he would later be known to the world as Johnny Cash. He grew up in Dyess, Ark., where his family moved to be a part of a rehabilitation project set up the Roosevelt administration.

While working in the cotton fields on their land, the family would sing country songs and listen to the Grand Ole Opry on lunch breaks. His mother, Carrie Cash, saved money so that he could take singing lessons. Thankfully, the teacher refused to try and change his distinctive voice so that he could fit in with a choir.

While in the military, Cash would write songs and played in a country band. He learned a lot about the guitar while in the Air Force, but an even more significant event was when he first saw Inside Folsom Prison, a film that inspired his song, “Folsom Prison Blues.” Cash became known as John for the first time in his life, when he had to choose a first name because the military wouldn't accept J.R.

Once discharged from the service, Cash moved to Memphis and married Vivian Liberto. He began taking classes at Keegan School of Broadcasting and joined a country band so that he could become a gospel singer.

After finally getting to talk to Sun Records’ Sam Phillips, Cash was encouraged to go out and write or find more secular material. Cash delivered with “Cry, Cry, Cry,” which was released as his first single, along with “Hey Porter.” In 1958, the secular side of music no longer made Cash happy, so he left Sun Records and signed with Columbia Records where he hoped to be able to pursue gospel music.

Things didn't work quite like he had imagined, and in the 1960’s, a time where Cash has said that was his most productive time music wise, would also become a time when his drug use would quickly escalate. Cash’s strange behavior while on drugs quickly come between him and his family. In 1967, Cash and Liberto divorced.

By this time, he had already met June Carter when she joined him on the road and co-wrote his hit single, “Ring of Fire” with Merle Kilgore. The song, which would hit No. 1 in 1963, was written about feelings concerning Cash’s and Carter’s relationship.

This relationship consisted of Carter helping Cash with his drug addiction, although she never fully succeeded. He would continue to use drugs off and on for the rest of his life.

Cash had a career in almost every aspect of entertainment. He recorded over 1500 songs and 140 albums; had his own television show, The Johnny Cash Show; made his own film, The Gospel Road; and wrote his autobiography, Man in Black.

In the late 1990ss, Cash was diagnosed with a Parkinson’s Disease related illness, Shy-Drager Syndrome. This would later turn out to be a misdiagnosis, and his health would continue to improve after he beat his battle with pneumonia in November 1997.

Doctors would later discover in 2000 that Cash suffered from autonomic neuropathy, a group of symptoms caused by nerve damage that is sometimes associated with diabetes.

Cash began to improve, and he even went on to record another album and put on shows. But then came heartbreak in May 2003, when his beloved wife, June Carter Cash, died. At her funeral, Cash looked devastated at the loss of his not just his wife, but his best friend.

Because music helped him heal, Cash was back in the studio after his wife’s death. But he was hospitalized several weeks ago, and was again rushed back on Thursday night to Baptist hospital, where he died early Friday morning.