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Yesterday was supposed to be a good day. This week was supposed to have been a good week. I remember being plagued by a dream earlier this week, though, that my teeth were falling out. I mentioned it on my Facebook. The next morning, my co-worker Brandi left a dream dictionary on my desk. I looked it up and didn’t like what I read. All about death of yourself or a close family member.

I didn’t like that interpretation. I decided that it must be because I have bad teeth instead. My teeth started hurting later that day, even.

That night, I also had a dream about being in the bathtub with a large insect trying to fly towards me, stuttering in its flight. My brain kept thinking cricket, but it wasn’t a cricket. It made a rattling noise that I couldn’t tell whether it was a baby rattle or the sound of a rattling snake. None of the books could tell me what that meant.

The next day, I remember that I was standing in my closet, and I was struck by the dream about losing my teeth again and its supposed meanings. I started thinking how lucky my family was. It’s very large, with lots of kids, and kids with kids, and we’ve never lost anyone, not like my grandma who lost two kids, one a baby and one in his twenties. Although, I guess, to her, he was still a baby, too.

I remember this. I remember all this, thinking this, and how sick it makes me now. I remember thinking: We were lucky. I was happy. I have a job I like, a husband I adore, a great family I love, and things just keep getting better.

And this is what I get for being so fucking arrogant, thinking how lucky I was.

Yesterday was supposed to be a good day. I keep saying this. I called in sick to sleep off the headache, but I was going to have the day with Jim. He doesn’t have school on Fridays. We were going to have a three day weekend, Friday afternoon together, Friday night with Phil, Saturday at Paul’s to celebrate his birthday, and Sunday to lounge and be lazy. That was the plan. 

In the afternoon, we decided to try to watch Inception when my phone rang. It was Jennifer. I looked at the clock. It wasn’t even three. Why would she be calling at a time when she knew I was normally at work? I picked up.

Jennifer was crying. My first thought, although I don’t know why, was that she had been raped. My second that I was going to kill whoever it was. Then I thought it was one of her kids, and that I would kill anyone who did anything to them. Then I thought she was calling to tell me that my dad died. I’m always expecting that call, always terrified of it.

Instead, she said, “Joshua died.”

I remember thinking Joshua? She can’t mean our Joshua. It must be a different Joshua. Our Joshua is only 24. He’s too young to be dead. I could barely concentrate on what she was saying, trying to think of all the Joshuas we knew that she could have been talking about. I even remember, I kid you not, thinking Who’s this fake Joshua she’s talking about? I don’t even know who this is.

Except we don’t know any other Joshuas.

Joshua is–was–our nephew, my sister Diana’s oldest, the one that Jennifer and I have always felt he was more like a brother to us than a nephew. He lived with us off and on for a number of years (Diana was 16 when she had him), and my parents even later got custody of him. I still remember our conversation about this that we had several years ago. We were at a train station, coming back from seeing museums in Chicago and going back to the suburbs, just chatting, when it dawned on Joshua that Jennifer and I were often home alone with him while we were growing up, at ages 10 and 8, to take care him while everyone else was at work or gone:

Josh: I just realized–you guys pretty much gave up your childhood to help raise me.
Me: Well…yeah, I guess. But it’s not like we were complaining. Jen and I would fight over who would get to feed you and Amber at 2 in the morning when you were babies, even on school nights. Your mom was a hard sleeper, so she’d sleep through it. Plus, we were fast.
Josh: Still…I never told you…thank you for helping to raise me. It’s not like you had to do it.

I have a hard time thinking about that conversation because given the circumstances of his death–or what we believe them to be–I keep thinking, Really, Josh? This is what I helped you to become?

That conversation is too hard, and a rare serious one with Josh, so let’s go to a more typical conversation. For example, you can probably tell we felt more like siblings than aunt/nephew by a conversation we once had when I tried calling the house for Dad:

Me: Josh, can you get Dad?
Josh: Well, I don’t know, that could cut into my masturbation time, ya know…
Me: Yeah, Josh, that’s gonna take five minutes. So after that, can you get Dad?

If you think that’s crass, trust me, that was Josh. Witness something that was pretty typical to see on his Facebook account:

He was very open, blunt, funny, and fun-loving:

But the one that gets me the most is this: 

Joshua was honestly the funniest person I’ve ever known. And I don’t mean how everyone thinks people they love are funny. I mean that I sometimes thought he should be in stand-up. He had a tendency to say things that skirted “wrongness,” and you’d feel guilty for laughing, but you couldn’t help it because it was so damn funny. I didn’t know anyone else that could get away with it.

And, as I said, very open. Even about drugs he took. Yes, he would post that on his Facebook, too, although I always thought it was limited to pot.

But Jennifer said that Friday morning, his roommate tried to wake him up for work. Joshua just wouldn’t wake up. And I found out that he might have been into harder stuff. It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but we’re thinking he ODed.

I keep thinking none of this can be real. It’s not right, it’s not fair. I remember him being  born. You should not watch someone be born and die. You should not watch someone else’s life flash before your eyes.

Oddly enough, just a couple weeks ago, I turned up this picture when I was looking at an archived version of my old blog from waybackmachine.org:

My ex and I used to go to ACen, an anime convention, and we would bring Joshua with us. My ex and I were always a little bashful about going up to the cosplayers to ask to take their pictures, but not Josh, so we would give him our cameras and let him take the pictures. Unsurprisingly, our photos were mostly of cute girls. I still remember this conversation:

Joshua (walking up to a gothed-out looking girl): Can I have your picture?
Goth Girl: Oh…this isn’t a costume…
Joshua: I don’t care!

When I found this picture a couple weeks ago, I was going to put it on his Facebook, saying Remember when? But then I thought maybe I shouldn’t. He’s lost a lot of weight since then, something he was very proud of, and I wasn’t sure if he wanted to be “reminded.” I don’t know how he feels about that.

So here are some that I know he wouldn’t mind me sharing because they’re on his Facebook:

Did I mention he was goofy? Yes, that’s him dressed up like a pickle. I don’t know who the guy on the left is. Probably one of his many, many friends.

Yeah, he didn’t care what anyone thought. He loved kittens. I remember he adored Emmy, whom he nicknamed “Stripe” (after Gremlins) “because she has a mohawk on her back!”

Josh also adored his nephew Isaiah (his sister Jasmine’s son), much in the way Jennifer and I had adored him.

And speaking of sisters:

Josh and his sister Amber share a birthday, exactly two years apart. I don’t even want to know how this is going to affect her birthdays from now on.

Josh’s step-sister Amanda, his nephew Isaiah, his sister Jasmine holding him, then Joshua, his mother (my sister) Diana, and Amber.

Let’s not forget Josh and his step-dad Chino–especially since Josh never knew his biological father. I remember Josh telling me how much he loved Chino, how glad he was to have him for a step-dad.

But this is how I always remember him:

Josh and my dad. Joshua’s caption on this picture is this:

6 yrs. old with my Grandpa. He’s still my hero.

 I really need to get up to my parents. He was like a son to them, and I’ve heard that they’re pretty shaken up. The only reason why I’m not on my way right now is because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about work. When I thought to call my supervisor, I was pretty sure he was already out of the office, and honestly…right then, I couldn’t say it aloud. I bawled just texting it to Paul to tell him why I couldn’t make it to his birthday barbecue on Saturday evening.

Jennifer said that Diana still seems to be in a state of shock. I haven’t heard anything about Amber and Jasmine yet. 

Amber is due in August. This is the last thing she needs.

I don’t know. Writing this seems almost wrong, but not writing about it, pretending it didn’t happen, seems even worse. There’s no winning here. There is no lucky.

Except that I was lucky to have had him for my nephew-like-a-brother. And while I know that a lot of people will feel sorry for my family today, I know that I feel sorrier for those of you who never got to know him.

Wherever Joshua is, I hope he knows he is loved…and missed beyond comprehension.

Tags: death, family, Josh, Joshua, nephew

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 25th, 2011 at 6:12 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.