My wife (Bambi's sister) sat down to read all of your messages yesterday. She asked that I post this to the thread:
I googled my brother tonight as part of the never ending quest for information i feel like i’m just starting as we process his absence. This thread came up and for the first time I read it and just sobbed.
My husband, and Josh’s good friend, posted here that first week because i asked him to. A lot of my instant sadness was that my brother seemed so isolated to me, but we knew he was active on this forum and so i asked that he let you guys know.
In those early days, when so much was unknown to us, my whole family was buoyed by the reports we got about that thread and that so many people cared about josh…errr i mean the stripper hunter. The pictures of yours toasts for him filled and the screenshots I’d get of your kind words both filled and broke my heart at the same time.
Now, as things have become more clear, we have realized how much this forum meant to him—that you laughed at (or were outraged by) his jokes, cared about his advice or plans for “gertrude” and that here he was really someone that mattered to a whole bunch of people. I don’t hesitate to say that in the last year of his life, this probably felt a whole lot like home to him. (I have to admit, i’m having a hard time explaining to friends how much the remembrances of him on an internet truck forum have meant to me.)
Being here pouring my guts out on that truck forum is probably the opposite of WWBS (wiggly wobbly bull scrotum) but we were very different people. Thank you for being friends to my brother, and to those of you who blocked him, thanks for that too—he certainly deserved it sometimes. Mostly though, I think sometimes Josh felt like he was never enough, but i don’t think he ever felt that here and for that i am so, so grateful.
…oh, and please drive carefully
