Happy 21st Birthday Josh - January 16, 2013 - updated with original poem

Josh - You would be 21 years old today!  To commemorate this momentous birthday, I've listed twenty-one things that you liked in your short seventeen years of life.  Your siblings helped with the list.

1.  Barney

2.  Yellow Blanket

3.  Legos

4. Drawing - you did such a good job with the Cat in the Hat!

5. Dragonball-Z

6. Yu-gi-oh

7. Pokemon

8.  Buddy

9.  Benji

11.  Food - Bulgogi, Ramen noodles

10.  Back scratch (just like Grandpa)

12.  Video Games:  Zelda, Gears of War, Guitar Hero, Halo

13. Football and lacrosse

14. Sleeping

15.  Shades

16. Listening to your iPod (Bob Marley, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Slightly Stoopid, Sublime, All American Rejects)

17. Texting on cell phone

18. Girls

19. Girlfriend

20.  Best friends

21. Being silly

RIP Josh.

We love and miss you on your big (legal) birthday!

May 27, 2013 update

Reading and writing poetry has become a small but significant part of my grief journey.  At the coffee shop yesterday, after my weekly visit to his gravesite, I was re-reading a short poem written at the beginning of the year, a couple of weeks before Josh's 21st birthday and immediately and unexpectedly started to cry.

21 

Sue Anderson

I see him, in my mind's eye:

     strong

     tall

     proud

     twenty-one year old.

He looks good:

     healthy

     broad-chested

     formidable shoulders

     lean waist

     mop hair

     trademark smirk.

Mirage looks so real!