Thanks to my dear friend Krystle, I had the honor of sharing Josh's story with Living Hope Church in Whitney, PA, during their Veteran's Day Service this past Sunday. I also had the extreme privilege of handing out silver coins - designed by Josh through Love Your Veterans - to the veterans in attendance. Below is the message I shared.
There are a lot of
things I could say about my brother; so many things, in fact, that there isn’t
enough time in this service, in this month, or the rest of this year to share
with you all of the amazing things that Josh did in his lifetime, enough time to
recount all of the wonderfully funny, quirky, unique, and inspiring traits and
actions that made him my “Joshy.”
What I can tell you,
though, is that Joshua Michael George loved music, loved sports (especially
baseball and his Texas Rangers), and enjoyed hunting. He had a servant’s heart and from his
childhood, knew that he was born serve others.
On the day of his death, Josh was 8 weeks away from receiving his degree
and becoming a paramedic. Josh was a
veteran of the United States Army, volunteered with inner-city, at-risk youth,
and loved his nephews – my two boys – with his entire heart. An above all things, though, Josh was a
Christian and had an unwavering love for the Lord.
Now I could stop there
and you all would walk away from here, thinking that Josh had lived a perfect
life in which he carried many important titles – Christian, Uncle, Veteran,
Paramedic, and to many, as we learned after his death – Hero… but in the words
of the late, Paul Harvey, I want to share with you “the rest of the
story.”
Josh’s life – his
legacy – isn’t beautiful in its perfection, but rather is beautiful because of
the flaws, the pain, the hurt, and the tears that led him home; home to his
family, yes, but even more importantly, home to his Heavenly father.
You see, Josh had more
titles to his name than the ones I’ve already mentioned. Josh was an on-again, off-again user of illegal
pills and he was (on more than one occasion) a drunk driver– my baby brother
was an addict, a trainwreck, and in many ways, for years it seemed to many
people, a hopeless cause.
Josh’s addiction, as
is almost always the case, started innocently enough. Josh started illegally using prescription
pills in high school as a byproduct of a football injury to his shoulder. Josh, always so sweet and trusting, took some
pills from a fellow player to relieve his pain – not knowing 1.) of the
ramifications from a legal standpoint and 2.) not realizing how that one
decision would forever impact the rest of his life. Josh wasn’t thinking, “I want to develop an addiction
to prescription pills;” he was simply thinking that he was in pain and wanted
to power through to finish the game. In
that moment, he went from being a typical, All-American high school athlete from
small-town Texas, to an addict constantly looking for the next high.
In his high school
years alone, I can remember two car accidents – one where he blacked out,
crashed his truck, and was rushed to the ER where he was immediately force-fed
chalk to try and rid his system of the many-in-number, many-in-form types of
pills he had consumed. Officers at the
scene said that Josh must have passed out, causing his foot to fall heavy on
the gas, and accelerating before running over several mailboxes and then
ultimately crashing into a chain-link fence.
The accident could have been so much worse and my mom, during this
episode and the many similar ones to follow, always told Josh that God must
have big plans for his life to have allowed him to escape death so many times –
turns out that she was right…
Having, quite
literally, barely made it out of high school alive, Josh briefly attended a
local community college where he planned on pursuing a profession in criminal
justice; shortly after his second semester, though, Josh realized that his
heart was in the Armed Forces. That
desire to serve something greater than oneself led him to enlist.
I’ll never forget
giving him a hug and saying goodbye as he boarded the bus in Shreveport, LA;
the bus that would take him to the airport headed for boot camp in Fort
Benning, GA just three days before his 21st birthday. I remember the mix of emotions: wanting to
cling to the little boy who had taught me to believe in love at first sight,
but wanting to keep my distance from the man who, on so many occasions, had –
through his poor choices – broken his sister’s heart; I wanted to tell him how
proud I was that he had chosen such a selfless path, but also wanted to
selfishly beg him not to go; I wanted to tell him I how much I loved him, but
knew that three little words could never fully capture just how much he, above
anyone else in the world, held my heart – something I didn’t fully realize
until many years later. So, I mustered
up the courage long enough to say, “I’m proud of you and love you. Write me when you can.”
And write me, he
did. When he sent letters, he shared of the
trials of boot camp, but always finished his letters talking about how happy
and how proud he was to serve his country. The first time I saw Josh after boot camp and
thinking that he looked like JOSH; pill-free and in full recovery, he looked
like the brother I hadn’t seen in over 4 years.
I also remember thinking that I knew it wasn’t possible… but he seemed
taller, thinner for sure, but also taller, as though the pride he had for
serving our country made him feel 10-feet tall.
He loved being a soldier, so you can imagine how crushed he was when he
was sent to the Warrior Transition Unit at Ft. Hood, preparing to be medically
discharged from the Army, just two weeks before he was set to deploy to Afghanistan.
Josh lost several
friends, the fellow soldiers he called “brothers” during that mission. Though he never pulled a trigger in battle or
felt the Afghanistan soil beneath his combat boots, he spent the rest of his
short life suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Survivor’s Guilt,
regretting that he hadn’t been there to fight alongside the men he loved as
family. Every day until the day that he
died, Josh wore an Army hat with an American flag, remembering his time in the
service, and honoring the friends that he lost.
A couple of years
after leaving the military, Josh met a woman named Melanie Davie, who had
recently put together a national campaign called “Love Your Veterans,” that was
dedicated to raising awareness, appreciation, and support for our military
heroes. Love Your Veterans, was then and
still is today, focused on helping our veterans as they return home and
struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder through two initiaitves – the
Triumph Program and HONOR Mentoring.
Josh was a founding member of the Honor Program which works closely with youth support
agencies across our country to employ veterans who can give at-risk kids the
real heroes missing in their lives. Josh
worked with inner-city children, many of whom had older brothers, sisters, and
even parents in gangs. Josh’s goals
within HONOR Mentoring included teaching self-esteem, respect for others,
discipline and strength of body, but what he did best was show them love and
compassion, and teach them they deserved better and should seek to rise above
their circumstances.
A few months into his mentorship,
Josh gave me a call and asked if he could come over for a while – he said he
had something to show me. When he arrived,
he pulled out a piece of notebook paper where he had used fine-tipped markers
and colored pencils to create a red, white, and blue heart that was adorned
with four stars. He explained the
meaning and mentioned that his design could become the official logo of Love
Your Veterans – and it did. Now this
official logo and been added to coins that are sold to raise money for funding of
Love Your Veterans. Josh never even told
us about the coins and we only learned about them when my parents each received
a coin with a letter from Melanie, sharing with them how much he had meant to
the program.
Eventually, Josh moved
away from Dallas and closer to home so he could pursue a career as a
paramedic. I don’t know if it was the
Survivor’s Guilt, the physical pain he experienced on a daily basis, or the return
of the same familiar demons that had historically haunted him when he was in
our hometown, but Josh returned to the use of pills, slipping further into his
addiction.
For the next several
years, Josh would ride that all-to-familiar rollercoaster of addiction and
attempted recovery, but no matter how hard he tried, Josh never could escape
the need for the unnatural high.
In May of 2014, I received
a phone call from my mom who, with a trembling voice, asked me to pray for
Josh. This wasn’t the first time I’d
received such a call, so as I had always done in the past, I braced myself for
the worst.
When I asked my mom
what was going on, she explained that Josh had finally realized that his
addiction was preventing him from being the man he was meant to be, so he quit,
cold turkey (something that doctors have told us was extremely dangerous). And though he’d suffered from withdrawals
before, this time was different.
Josh was constantly
hallucinating and, almost every time he slept, he was having the same recurring
nightmare where he was having a physical battle with Satan and, at the
conclusion of each of these nightmares, the devil would laugh and ultimately
win. By this point, I was convinced that
Josh had finally reached a stage where he had consumed so many pills for so
long that he would either live the remainder of his life with severe mental
illness or cease to live it all.
The dream continued
for a full week where, time and time again, it ended the same – with the devil
victorious and Josh awakening, terrified, almost inconsolable, at what he had
witnessed. After several days, Josh had
the same dream one more time; in this last vision, Josh yet again was battling
Satan, but this time, he wasn’t alone. Towards the end of the battle, Jesus
arrived and conquered the devil FOR Josh, knowing that my brother couldn’t do
it alone. That was the last time that Josh
ever dreamed of the devil; it was also the first day of the rest of his life.
Over the next few
months, Josh recommitted his life to Christ and became involved in his local
church. When he visited my family and I
in New York last December, he talked about his dreams of the devil telling me,
“Dude,” (he always called me “dude”), “that was the scariest thing I’ve ever
been through in my life, but in the end I knew that God was with me” He also told me how the song “Oceans” by
HIllsong Live, had helped him get through those tough time and had, in a way,
become his battle cry.
In addition to
overcoming addiction, Josh became a straight A student in the paramedic program
and, though we didn’t know it until many months later, he became an inspiration
and source of strength to those around him.
In fact, one of his friends reached out to Josh on March 10th
to talk about her struggles of having lost a loved one.
Josh responded with
this text, “I’ve definitely been in situations that definitely should have left
me 6 feet in the ground. Accidental
overdose at 16 from a migraine. 3 car wrecks that totaled every vehicle. Was taking medicine for pain management and I
came off of it on my own and saw the devil and I fighting in my dreams for a
straight week and I could never beat him up.
He’d just laugh at me and then finally God was there and God scared him
away. During this time I was
hallucinating and seeing demons but God had me in his hands the whole time.”
Josh then continued,
“Someone asked me the other day, ‘Why does God take good people. I said, well, if they’re a Christian they
were ready to be in heaven anyways. And
it’s up to our belief and faith in God to know that your loved one is there
that he’s with you too.” And this is the
part that gets me every time, “We will never know why we lose loved ones so
early until we get to Heaven, then it’ll all click.”
This self-fulfilling
prophecy was sent via text within 12 hours of Josh taking his final breath on
earth and opening is eyes in the presence of Jesus.
Since that time, I’ve
thought about my brother as the prodigal son, having strayed so far away before
finding his way back home. He struggled
for 12 years and returned to the Josh we all knew and loved for only 10 months
before dying from cardiomegaly – an enlarged heart, proving something we had
known all along… our sweet Josh had a really, really big, larger-than-average
heart.
And I have no doubt
that his heart was not only large, but full – full of love and laughter, full
of joy and happiness, full of memories of a life that mattered and made a
difference, and full of gratitude for a God that forgives, stands by us, and
never stops believing in or loving us – even when we deserve it the least.
We’ve estimated that
over 500 people came to Josh’s funeral, and while the service lasted less than
an hour, we were all there for over three hours as people streamed through,
telling us of how Josh had changed their lives, challenged them to worker
harder in school, went above and beyond as a paramedic who took care of their
infant son. There were former drug addicts who talked about how Josh helped
them overcome addiction and veterans whom he’d never met; one even told my dad
that he didn’t know Josh, but had come to the funeral to “salute a soldier.”
Josh would have turned
30 in 3 days – yes, his birthday fell on Veteran’s day, which is so completely
appropriate given how much he loved his time serving his country as a soldier. Nothing would have made him prouder than to
know that his name was mentioned in front of so many of you, his brothers and
sisters of the Armed forces - He would have thanked you all for your service to
our country, for your sacrifice, and for loving something more than you loved
yourself. He would have also been
honored to share his story of overcoming and of returning home, with you all –
his brothers and sisters in Christ. He
would have smiled his half-smirk, and chuckled his deep-gutted laugh, feeling
so humbled that you all had cared enough to hear his story.
For anyone who is
hurting or knows of someone who is struggling, be it with addiction or general
hardships in life, Josh would want to tell you to never, ever give up – on
yourselves or the ones your love and that while things may be tough and healing
may not happen in the timing we prefer, that God is and always will be bigger
than the challenge and that He will help you overcome once you are truly
willing to give it all to Him.
Again, thank you for
your time and for hearing Josh’s story.
