As the waves of grief begin their slow journey of de-intensifying, I have some important thoughts that I need to share. I have certainly had a knowledge of the impact Josh has had on people only to find that even I had underestimated the scope. I think Josh had no clue.
If the result of what I'm writing is to create guilt in anyone, then I will have failed miserably in my goal so please do not add to the already overfilled emotional baggage I am storing. Josh had a rich life. But it could have been much richer. His world was relatively small, made even smaller by the pandemic. Josh loved being with me and Elise and his brothers, but face it, he also got bored with us.
From the vast amount of wonderful communications we have been receiving about Josh, just imagine the impact if so many people would have had just one more direct interaction with him over a whole year's time. I suspect this is true of the WS community in general and also would apply to much of the neurodivergent population of the world as well. Josh would NEVER be upset with anyone for not showing up and would never admonish anyone for it. Again, my purpose is to create a mindset of proactivity. If this results in guilt, Josh would be very unhappy with me. It's food for thought on how we proceed with our lives.
JOSH 2.0
I thoroughly believe that I will meet up with Josh in the world to come. I will conduct my life to the best of my ability to merit doing so. What I will see is a young man who stands up straight, walks without a limp, uses his right arm and hand, accustomated to being right-handed again, has no problems swallowing or breathing, has a healthy heart, does not require taking a volume of daily medications and continues to have the same speech and all the cognitive strengths and weaknesses and behavioral components of Williams syndrome. Josh without WS is not Josh.
We will hug deeply, he will tell me about his adventures, he will introduce me to the myriad of people in his new life and I will become whole again.
Marty