Grateful

The last few weeks have been pretty trying.  I've held it together for the most part.  I want to say thank you to my small group for being there for us.  I know that I can talk to all of them, and they genuinely care about what I'm saying.  I haven't talked a whole lot, but I know I could if I needed to.  I want to say thank you to my old friends that have been around through it all.  Even though time and distance separate us, I'm appreciative for your care and concern.  Thank you for the pep talks. Thank you for just saying how sorry you are.  This whole thing hasn't made a lot of sense from the beginning.  It's good to know that there are people that are just there to lean on.  Thank you for being those people.  Thank you to my wife for being very patient and understanding.  Thank you for letting me have a minute to process this.  Thank you for being there for my parents.  Thank you to my parents for raising me to be the man that can be strong for them when they're not strong.  Again, this hasn't made sense from the beginning, and I know it never will for you two.  If you've made, or bought food, sent flowers, or cards, or texted, or hugged, or cried, or laughed, or sent flowers, or shared your memories of my brother, thank you.  I'm thankful for you.  I'm thankful for a God of grace and mercy,  that has a plan (that doesn't make a whole lot of sense sometimes), who is still in charge of all of this.  Thank you.  Thank you for Jesus.  I'm thankful that I'm not worried about where my brother is today. 

Josh's Puzzle

How do you sum up someone’s life after they’re gone? We all have pieces of the puzzle that made up Josh’s life.  I have a few pieces, my parents have a number of pieces, all of you, his family and friends have the other pieces.  Some of them are jagged and rough and take a little work to fit  together with the other ones  Some of them fit right together just like they were made to do.  At the end of it all, we got to see the finished work.  Joshua is in the place now where the puzzle started.  He’s with the creator of the puzzle.  He’s with the one that saw it all come together.  God saw us in Josh’s life. He knew just how we would fit together with Josh.

Let’s start at the beginning.  Josh was born on September 25 1979, early in the morning.  He came out of the womb making noise, and he didn’t stop until he had to.  One of my earliest memories of my baby brother is, not too long after he came home, I remember seeing this tiny intruder that cried and made noise, and took all of the attention away, and seeing a bottle of downy on the counter and thinking that it was a really good idea to pour it all over him.  He may have been a few months old and it just seems like he had just come home, but I really don’t know. He was a little guy though.  Josh was always into something.  He was busy all the time.  He loved playing outside with his hot wheels.  He would spend hours playing outside.  Since we grew up in the late 70’s and 80’s, we were left to play outside quite a bit.  My PawPaw had come out to our house one to get our air conditioner going for the summer.  My Dad worked crazy hours in those days, so my PawPaw came out to help my Mom.  We had a swamp cooler on the roof.  My PawPaw was using a ladder to get up and down of course.  He went to go get some parts, or check on the water or something.  My Mom came outside to come get us for lunch and didn’t see Josh.  She asked me where he was, I had no idea.  She saw the ladder and said, there’s no way is there?  She climbed the ladder and saw little two year old Josh up on the roof playing in the air conditioner water like it was no big deal.  She was freaked out.  Josh was sad that he couldn’t play in the water anymore.  Josh would climb anything.  He had great balance as well. 

Josh was a pretty scrawny kid.  He was skinny, but he had skinny little arms and legs for a long time.  My Dad called him Grover.  Remember Grover from Sesame Street?  If you don’t, google image him, and that’s what Josh’s arms and legs looked like for a long time.  My Dad called him that forever.  It was always a great nickname, and it was something that only He and my Dad had. 

Josh was pretty active. Hyperactive.  It was hard to get him to settle down.  If he was growing up today, I know that someone probably several someone’s would’ve wanted him on rydalin.  I seem to remember him getting tested, but my parents said nah, he’s just being a boy.  Josh was hyperactive.  He was always moving around and up to something.  Outside doing something, inside, doing something.  One time when he was in first grade he was sliding and somehow broke his tailbone.  There isn’t a cast that a doctor can put on a tailbone.  I wish there was because I would’ve made fun of Josh mercilessly for having his butt in a cast.  Needless to say, a few days after he broke his tailbone, he decided that it would be a great idea to moon the playground.  So he did.  Full moon.  He was sent to the principal’s office and since in those days and in small towns, the principal was allowed to swat kids with a paddle, unless you had a note (we never had a note) the normal punishment would’ve been two swats.  Since Josh had a broken tailbone, he was the first 1^st grader to be suspended from school.  My Grandpa drilled water wells.  My Dad worked a job, my Mom worked a job.  So Josh’s “punishment” was to go with my grandpa and work.  I remember my Grandpa telling my Dad the story.  I remember his mannerisms, and the joy he told the story with.  He said Joe I swear, I turned around to shift the rig into gear, and I turned back around and Josh was gone.  My Grandpa was working alone that day, so he had to shut down and go on a manhunt.  Josh had ran off somewhere to go play or check on what caught his attention at that moment.  My Grandpa was too happy that he found him, than to be mad at him. 

When he was little, Josh was best friends with his cousin Stefanie.  They remained close for as long as I can remember.  I remember them being very little, like 4 maybe.  They were riding their tricycles and decided that it would be a good idea to strip naked and ride their tricycles.  That was a little controversial I seem to remember.  They would jump in the pile of leaves that my PawPaw would rake up.  They would ride around in the wheelbarrow while my PawPaw pushed them.  They were very close. 

Josh made a few different efforts to play sports.  He was never very athletic. His attention span was also an issue.  I would try to help him out with baseball.  He was beyond my help.  Because of his skill set, he always played right field.  Right field in little league baseball is no man’s land.  You aren’t dealing with right handed hitters that like to take it to the opposite field.  I remember on more than one occasion being at his baseball games, and hearing the coach get onto him for not paying attention to the game.  I mean not at all.  He would take his glove off and squat down and play in the dirt, or he would chase butterflies, anything besides what was going on in the game.  He tried basketball as well, again it just wasn’t his thing.  My Dad and I were always into sports.  We would watch football, basketball, baseball, one would bleed into the other and Josh could not have cared less.  Every once in a while, Josh would try to talk to me about what was going on with the Longhorns, or the Cowboys, in an effort to bond with me. Since 95% of the conversations I have involve those two things, I have a lot to say.  I would talk to him about if for 3 minutes or so and I would see his eyes glaze over and say “Josh, I appreciate the effort.”  We didn’t relate to each other on a lot of things, but Josh would always try, and I always appreciated it. 

Josh loved cars.  He would sit for hours playing with cars. I know we could’ve left him out all night playing with his cars, and he would have no idea that it was night time, or that he was hungry.  We would be driving places, and he would always notice tires.  He loved tires, it was weird.  I had to get a couple of tires the other day, and I know he would’ve noticed that they’re different.  He would’ve asked me why they weren’t matching.  I called Discount Tire the other day to make an appointment.  When I gave them my phone number, the guy asked, “is this Jarod or Josh?”  I’ll never take him off the account.  He was always deeply involved in the care of my tires.  Every time I get a new set, I will remember that and smile.  He was rough at times. He had some hard edges, but there wasn’t anyone that was more helpful to me in certain areas of my life than my brother.  It may not seem like a big deal to you, but on more than one occasion, he would take my car, or my mom’s car, or my mom’s fleet of flower delivery vans, and deal with the tires.  It was a big deal to me.

I have no idea how many cars he helped people buy.  He would go to the dealership with people, and sit and wrangle a deal with them. Josh knew the ins and outs of car buying.  He knew where the scams were.  He knew where the discounts were.  He loved haggling a car deal.  He was good at it.  He was a car salesman a couple of different times.  He love helping people buy cars. 

He was a claims adjuster.  I always thought it was his calling.  He studied, he could look at the damage and assess if there was frame damage, or if it was minor, or he had an almost innate ability to know if there was more damage than what was visible.  He was always right.  He never got in trouble for his recommendations.  They were always spot on.  He was always exactly right in his damage assessment.  He walked me through the claims process a couple times.  Everyone in our family would call him and see what they should do.  Any number of friends would ask him for his help with a claim and he would just take over and get it taken care of.  I had a claim done one time and he took care of it. I got a check in the mail for way more than I ever would’ve gotten.  He did that stuff all the time.  He would just help.

A couple months ago, I was visiting him in the hospital and we were talking about cars.  He was asking about my car.  He asked about Christa’s car.  He couldn’t remember what it was.  I said, it’s a chevy traverse.  He said, “Jarod, a chevy? Really?”  I said Christa wanted the third row seat.  He said “ok, but I can’t believe you bought a chevy”.  He was a Ford guy and a Nissan guy.  He would spend hours researching cars.  He was part of a Nissan forum.  We had a transmission go out on one Nissan.  He found one in some part of the country and saved a lot of money even after getting it shipped because he was so into cars.  He talked to people everywhere about cars.  I always wanted him to get rich because I knew he would have some pretty sweet rides. 

Over these last few days, there have been a flood of memories about Josh.  We would be here for hours if I told you about all of them that I have.  He would fidget all the time.  It would drive me nuts.  He was always rolling something between his fingers.  He would grab coffee straws and he would roll them in his fingers all day.  I wondered if he would ever rub his fingerprints off.  There would always be a bunch of them in his car.  He would drive with one hand, and roll the straw in his other.  I don’t know of anyone else that does that.  It was uniquely his thing.  I would always try to figure out why he did it.  He didn’t know, and for the life of me I don’t have a good explanation for it. 

Because of his love for cars, Josh loved driving.  He loved road trips.  Most of the time, I dread them.  Not Josh.  He was up for one all the time.  When he first started driving, it was the best.  He took over the duty of driving my Granny all over the state of New Mexico every other weekend.  I may be exaggerating the number of them.  But he took her anywhere she wanted to go.  He wasn’t held back by things called speed limits.  And my Granny loved it. When I would take her on trips, she would ask me why I was going so slow. What’s really funny about that, is, I have always driven 5-10 miles an hour above the speed limit.  So I’m really not sure how fast he would drive with her, but she never told him to slow down.  Josh loved her.  She introduced him to gospel music.  When I would drive her, if we couldn’t listen to my music, I would drive in silence.  Not Josh.  She would bring her Gaither Vocal band tapes and he’d pop them in and enjoy it.  One of the things that remains a mystery to me to this day, and I’ll never understand it, is how much Josh loved gospel music.  I can’t stand it.  I’ll listen to it ironically, but I don’t ever just causally listen to it and enjoy it.  Josh did.  I think it was because of my Granny.  She always care for Josh. She would never judge him.  She would just take him as he was.  All of his hyperactivity, I never remember her getting on to him.  She was supremely patient with him.  She loved him so much.  He loved her so much. He was devastated when she passed away.  He stayed close to her his whole life.  It was a truly unique relationship.  He always showed up for her.  When he moved away from her, he would go see her as often as he could.  He would call her.  He would send people to go check in on her.  I remember one time, some maintenance had gone past due for quite a while on her car because Josh would normally just take care of it.  He was appalled to see how far past due for an oil change she was.  He immediately when and got it changed, took it to the car wash and cleaned it and brought it back.  He would pretty much do that every time he came back for visit.  He adored his Granny.  I am glad that they are together today.  I know she prayed for him and was always very interested in his success.  I’m glad that they’ve been reunited. 

Joshua loved my Mom and Dad.  He was always close to them.  Well, he was always close with my Mom.  As he got older, he became closer with my Dad.  My Dad and Josh butted heads while he was growing up, but what kid doesn’t butt heads with the parent they were most like?  Josh would always press my Dad’s limits.  He knew how to push my Dad’s buttons.  From the end of my 8^th grade year until, I can’t remember, we were remodeling our house.  We added a giant addition and remodeled the rest of it.  It seemed like it took forever.  At some point in there, we had to reroof it.  My Dad had this grand plan of all of us working hard to reroof it.  A couple of his friends came and helped.  Josh was out there for a bit.  We were scraping the shingles off.  It was hard work because there were several layers of shingles.  Josh was giving his usual effort when it came to doing something that he didn’t want to do. Which means, no effort.  He was lazily moving the scraper across the top of the shingles.  In frustration, my Dad yelled, Josh, get off the roof, which is exactly what Josh wanted. Aaron and I were amazed at his ability to pull this off and we tried to do it, it didn’t work.  Josh was inside sipping lemonade and pointing and laughing at us every time he saw us going to get something for my Dad. I was mad at that moment, but now I completely admire it. As Josh grew older, he became closer and closer to my parents. I’m glad that they had the type of relationship they did. Joshua loved them both very much. 

I honestly don’t know how to end this.  I kind of don’t want to because it seems so final.  I will miss my brother.  There will always be a hole in my heart because he isn’t here anymore.  I know that as my boys grow older that he would’ve been a great uncle to them.  He didn’t know how to relate to them as babies, but I know he would’ve showed them how to work on cars, taken them for ice cream, taught them how to do armpit farts.  He would’ve taught them any number of things that I would’ve had to have gotten onto him for, but I wish he was still here for that stuff.  That will always make me sad.  I know there was so much left undone.  I want to you to know that I don’t despair.  I’m mourning my brother passing at way too young of an age.  I hate that he died at 37.  I do know this.  He is in Heaven.  He is in the place that he belongs.  He’s home.  He told to the doctor a couple of days before he passed that he was ready to see Jesus.  I take solace in that.  The peace that I feel in my soul comes from the fact that I know he is with our creator.  There’s a large part of my soul that longs to be there as well.  I’ll never worry about him again.  He isn’t sick any longer.  He doesn’t have any regrets anymore.  He’s home.  He’s where his soul belongs.  I don’t mourn without hope.  I mourn because I don’t have him here anymore, but he’s always with me.  Every time I see a quirky chicken, I’ll think of Josh.  Every time an inappropriate comment comes to my mind, I’ll think of Josh.  Every time I need new tires, or get into a fender bender, I’ll think of Josh.  He was my brother.  We didn’t always get along, but we always loved each other.  I know he died loving me.  I know he died with me loving him.  I’m sad that he’s gone.  I’m happy he’s home. 

So those are some of the pieces of my Josh puzzle.  There are many, many others.  I’m sure that for the rest of my life, I’ll be collecting pieces.  That puzzle is now complete in eternity.  Josh is in Heaven.  His puzzle is complete. And it is beautiful.