My best blogging buddy

My nephew Josh is the reason I started blogging. He had started a good 6 months before I did and told me how much fun it was and how much he was getting out of it. I decided to give it a try and we often compared notes. I had a pretty sharp learning curve, but I caught up eventually and loved sharing blogging tips with him.

Josh met people from all over as a result of his blogging. He loved the ability that it gave him to connect with so many, so easily, although nothing was really easy for Josh. He was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of 3 and lived with and fought against the disease until just yesterday, when he died at the age of 31. He had a remarkable life and his mother, father, 2 sisters and his entire family and network of friends are going to miss him deeply.

The important things about Josh weren’t his limitations or what he COULDN'T do. It was all that he DID do. He was the author of an uplifting book, Worth The Ride, about his life with muscular dystrophy. He was a college graduate and weeks away from getting his Master’s in Urban Planning from Temple University.

He blogged by controlling his mouse by a laser on his headset (I never understood how that worked), as well as dictating to some wonderful helpers. His blog, Winheld's World gave him the opportunity to talk about his disability issues, as well as more personal things. Josh was the original Philly fanatic. He lived and breathed his sports teams. You knew never to ask him about them, if they were on a losing streak. He loved visiting baseball parks and had quite a few of them under his belt.

Interestingly, another connection we had was that Josh loved to cook. He would go online and find recipes that interested him. Then he would instruct his nurses just how to do each step and he would come up with a delicious dinner. His favorite gift to folks was a jar of his homemade pickles that had the same spark and fire (WHEW, they were spicy!) that he did.

Maybe Josh was in a wheelchair and had great challenges in, really, everything that he did, but he accomplished more and was more interested in the world outside than most people. We were all so lucky to be in his life and there’s really nothing more to say but that we love him and we’ll miss him very, very much.