Category: Family

In March 2019 when the original tumor was removed from Josh’s brain, I naively thought that he would be healthy again after a few weeks of recovery and some physical therapy. I thought that the brain tumor was just a bump on the road, and that we would continue on with life once it was gone. What I didn’t understand at the time, but would soon realize, is that we were on an entirely different path filled with tough choices, hardships, and sorrow. Or, that Josh would carry the heaviest weight as he was faced with several hard truths and asked to make unimaginable choices.

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Although we were grateful for the successful removal of the entire tumor, this was still only the beginning of Josh’s road to recovery. When he was transferred to Mary Free Bed, he had paralysis on the right side, and couldn’t speak. Simple things that we take for granted, like being able to spit, were challenges for him.

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At the same time, Josh was about to do something incredible. He was once a teen who needed to be reminded to take out the garbage, or woken up for school in the morning, but once he started rehabilitation, he gave everything he had as he worked hard to gain back the abilities he had lost. He persevered during the remaining three years with kindness and a sense of humor.

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There was a point during his rehabilitation where he was undergoing physical therapy, radiation treatments, and chemotherapy at the same time. There were some rough days, but he was able to do it all.

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Josh had improved so much by the fall of 2021, that I was beginning to feel like we were finally coming “out of the woods” and that he was about to have a long future. He would ask questions about what would happen after graduation, and I would explain that he would continue his classes, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like. We helped him purchase a one-handed keyboard as a part of his Make A Wish request, and I thought this would be something he might use later in life as a part of a job.

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I’m grateful for the privilege to be Josh’s father, and to stand beside him as he courageously regained his ability to walk and talk during his fight with cancer. He was a wonderful young man, kind hearted, a strong big brother to Elijah, and a good little brother to Kayla.

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I’ve missed him every day since he passed away. There are a lot of things that I would have wanted to share with him.

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Most recently, Elijah and I played a joke on my wife for April Fools Day. The day before, I bought four packages of googly eyes, and hid them around the house. This was in homage to a trick Josh played on his Grandma Morgan a few years ago after he found a package of googly eyes that she had at her house. He hid them so well that it took several weeks for my mom to find them all. She still complains about it.

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This was the kind of thing that Josh would have appreciated helping me with, both because it would be funny and because it would have been an opportunity to show off his height. But, he would have initially groaned and rolled his eyes before going along with the idea.

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Maybe the best thing we can do in Josh’s absence is to live life the way that he would have if he had been given more time. Appreciate every day, show kindness to others, persevere through tough challenges, and take every opportunity to laugh. Especially if it involves googly eyes.

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A few years ago, probably around 2016 or 2017, we were hanging around at home when I told Josh he needed to see a funny video I had found on the Internet. I cast it onto the TV, and we both shared a good laugh. Then, he asked me if I had ever heard of Chadtronic.

Chadtronic? No, I hadn’t seen any of his videos, although I was getting the impression that Josh very much had. He found an episode on YouTube where Chadtronic reacted to an old video from the 1990’s which helped show people how to get connected to the Internet. I was drawn in by both the nostalgia of the video and Chadtronic’s sense of humor, and from that point forward we always tried to catch every one of the videos that he posted. When one of us saw a notification that a new video had gone live, we’d share the news and then gather around the TV so we could watch it together. It just wasn’t the same watching them for the first time without Josh in the room.

When Elijah was old enough, we introduced him to Chadtronic, although he brought his own perspective.

I suppose that I might have eventually stumbled across Chadtronic on YouTube. What I treasure the most is the time that I spent with Josh watching his videos, sharing a few good laughs, and discovering new memes together..

As sons go, Josh and Elijah are the best companions that a dad could ask for. Elijah still has a fresh view of the world that helps to keep me feeling young. Josh kept me on my toes. I appreciate all of the time that we were able to spend together. I’m excited to see what the future holds for Elijah.

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It’s hard to believe it, but today my daughter, Kayla, started her senior year at CMU. Even harder to believe is the fact that in a couple of semesters, she will be getting her college diploma and stepping out into the wide open world of life, profession, relationships, and everything else that comes included when you become an adult. I knew that this day was coming, but back when it was three or four years away it seemed so far off.

Kayla has done amazingly with her classes, and already has a lot to be proud of. She was also a trooper, balancing her college classes with everything that was going on with her brother, Josh, helping us by watching her little brother Elijah, and adjusting to a new way of doing things as we all dealt with COVID19, lockdowns, and virtual classes.

Good luck with this new year, Kayla.

It has been hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that our youngest son, Elijah, started the Third Grade this year. I’m not sure why, but that feels like a much bigger deal than the first or second grade. It’s as if he has crossed some kind of threshold that marked him as a “big kid” as opposed to a “little.” Or, if he is not the oldest grade, then he is somewhere in the middle, which puts him only a year away.

Each time my kids have graduated to a new grade in school, I’ve found myself thinking back to my own experiences. My third grade year was spent in a classroom which was split between second and third graders. Sharing a classroom with second graders felt somewhat special, kind of like being in a one-room schoolhouse as portrayed in “Little House on the Prairie.” But, I also remember that my mom wasn’t very happy. I also remember that our third grade teacher was fresh hire in the school, and I think that the idea of creating the classroom with split grades might have been an eleventh hour solution.

Maybe Elijah’s entry into the third grade affects me only because when I look back my experiences in the third, fourth, and fifth grades all sort of blend together. I do remember being in the classroom, and Movie Days, but the rest is a bit of a blur. I made a friend in the third grade who also rode the bus with me, and in a year or two turned into more of a bully.

But, what do I actually remember about the fourth and fifth grade? Only the smallest bits and pieces. Enough to understand why I want Elijah’s time in elementary school to be both educational and pleasant.

This morning my seven-year-old son, Elijah, began asking me questions about what happens to us after we die. He was rushing me while I strapped him into his car seat, complaining that I was taking too long. It was snowing, and he pointed out that with the door opened, the snow was landing on him, the sucker from the pediatrician’s office he was holding in his hand, and me. He was very explicit about feeling concerned about those three things in that precise order. Then, he said that he was mainly worried about himself.

Before I could ask him what that meant, he asked what happens when we die. I could tell that this was going to be an interesting ride home.

He was basically asking if there was a life after death, and I said that according to our religion there was, and that we called it Heaven. I explained that Heaven was a wonderful place where there isn’t sickness, or pain, and that you can see others who passed away before you. Elijah likes to relate things to video games, so I used the analogy of Mario Brothers to help describe what Heaven might be like. I said that it was like a level without any enemies, and perhaps you could walk or ride through the sky on clouds. Also, all of the video game characters from the past and present, like Qbert and Pac-Man, might be seen hanging out there.

I also said that Heaven was a place you could enter if you were a good person. I told him that his Grandpa Boyne, who passed away when he was much younger, was most definitely in Heaven, and he was probably there with the rest of his family had passed away before him. This was important, because we have seldom talked openly to Elijah about his grandfather passing away, although I think he understands that he is absent from our lives.

This was the first time I have discussed death, dying, Heaven, and Hell with my kids. It just never came up with my older two. But, I’m not surprised that Elijah thought to ask about it, just maybe the timing following a trip to the doctor’s office. With everything that has happened in our lives and nationally, maybe there has just been a lot more discussion about death and he’s picked up on it.

He asked a lot of great questions, too:

• ●Do we have a life after we die?
• ●Do pets go to Heaven?
• ●How long does it take to get to Heaven?
• ●If you are holding something when you die, does that go to Heaven with you?
• ●Where is Heaven?
• ●Where is Hell?
• ●Does God live in Heaven?

I answered each one based on what I had learned, although I pointed out that nobody could be sure.

I’m thinking it is time for us to give religion more attention, so that Elijah has a chance to ask more of these questions. And, I’m going to need to go so I’m prepared for more of these conversations.

One thing that continues to amaze me is all of the positive ways in which my kids have challenged me by forcing me to take new changes, try new things, and to reflect on questions that I wouldn’t normally take the time to ponder. And, I didn’t mind thinking about death and Heaven during that car trip home, because it helped distract me from my more down-to-Earth problems..