**“The look of him feeling free, floating in the ocean, was priceless.”**

The past thirteen-plus months have been the most challenging in my life, and life wasn't a cakewalk before that. The hole that JB has left in my life and heart just will never be filled.

I have encountered some positive lessons though, some reconfirmed ones, and some new ones.

Among the reconfirmed lessons are that:

My and Caroline's family and friends are loyal, caring, talented, and strong.
Being by the ocean does make everything better.
Laughing, even when crying, makes life bearable.

One new lesson is as cliche as it sounds, I learned that grief, for me, is like waves. Sometimes it is consistent waves. Ones that are steady and you know are coming one after another. Sometimes it is stormy, angry ones that knock you right off of your feet. Sometimes it’s a rouge wave that gets you. You know, when you don’t plan to go in all the way, but a wave comes out of nowhere and you're soaked. So, you decide to go for a swim because you are already wet, and after the swim you are glad you got hit by that rouge wave.

I am never glad when grief comes at me like that, but I am always glad I go for a swim because that is where I feel JB the most. The look of him feeling free, floating in the ocean, was priceless.

I learned that being out in nature is where I feel the most connected to JB: the ocean, walking outside, hiking Noanet Peak. It is funny to me because he was a kid who played a heck of a lot of Xbox.

I learned that he sends us signs; I know it. From Jehovah's Witnesses making frequent visits and hearing certain songs to seeing a red biplane when I need it the most. I know he is up there, just like he was in his bi-plane rides, flying high, watching, and sometimes messing with us.

Some other new lessons:

Some Jeep soft tops are not meant to go all the way down. That was about a $2,000 lesson.
You can do and feel just about anything while crying. You can even work out, but it is very dehydrating.

One big new lesson is about our guy JB. I have learned to believe what an impact JB had on so many. People may have said that he made an impact on them before he passed away but I don’t remember or didn’t grasp it. I was just busy getting through the days, juggling schedules, making appointments, you know existing. Now there is way too much of not being busy! But, that quiet let me realize his lasting effect on others.

This realization did not come from the many appreciated comments of “JB had such an impact on my life,” but it came from hearing so many small stories about JB. Stories that I never knew about, accumulating to serve as proof of this effect. Stories that I could process in the quiet.

When JB first passed away, it was challenging for me to hear these stories. It still can be. If you share with me and I am crying, keep sharing. As I said, you can do and feel many things while crying, even grateful.

I savor learning about something he did or said that I did not know about. I think that because I was with JB as much as I was, I knew it all, I didn’t. It gives me great joy to know he had a life filled with relationships and experiences I knew very little about. It means he does and will continue to leave a lasting impression on the world.

So what are some of these untold stories of the JB? I will share a few with you.

There is video evidence of JB in his Tetra-ski, skiing down the mountain and he completely takes out an unsuspecting skier. No incident report was filed by his ski instructors. He could keep a secret? I sure didn’t know that. The video does look like the unassuming skier was a total “Joey” and was in JB’s way. I shared the video with another coach who said “I laughed my ass off with JB on chairlift rides watching pretty much the same things. Our amusement at the expense of others.”
He and Caroline had a special Friday morning pump-up song that they listened to at full blast in the parking lot of the high school, much to JB’s dismay. I am sure he was mortified, but she said he danced along by the end of the year.
He loved to listen to Noah Kahn at camp, especially “Homesick” because, you know, he was homesick. So he could keep a secret, but he was still a very literal young man.
Another video is of JB at around age 4. One of his cousins asks him what he has for breakfast lunch and dinner and he says “marijuana”. They would go back and watch this in more recent years and laugh.

I never knew how many laughs he shared without me and I could not be more happy about that. I love it when I see a photo of him that I have not seen before. More proof of shared experiences with others.

I loved him to pieces, but I often worried that he wasn’t a good friend because he had so much going on that he had to deal with. I got a note saying that “He was such a devoted and selfless friend”. Selfless… he was?!

I learned while kayaking at camp a few days before he died that he told his counselor he felt “at peace”. That means so much and I hang onto that, knowing he is at peace now as well.

The memories I hold onto and miss most are not the big events like the holidays, the birthdays, and the trips. It is what I think of as the “in-betweens” of the small talk and laughs. That fairly high-pitched uncontrollable giggle when watching Letter Kenny or Ozzy Man Reviews was just the best. I miss those in-between moments so much but it is the stories I shared and so many more I haven’t, that keep me going.

What also has kept me going is the work that all of our donors have allowed JB’s Keys to do. It really does keep him alive with all of us. I appreciate all the support and encourage people to look at all our programs.

I found a presentation JB put together on leadership. In it, he talks about the weaknesses and strengths he thought he had as a leader. He believed his weaknesses were second-guessing himself, being a perfectionist, and being brutally honest. That last one of being brutally honest he also thought that was a strength. Other strengths were communication because he asked for what he needed, and passion because he wanted to succeed in everything he did.

His favorite quote about leadership was: “Great leaders inspire greatness in others”.

In his own way, he did and continues to do just that. One way to take his inspiration towards greatness is coming together to provide young men with Duchenne and their families the chances he had: to have quality care, to feel at peace, to feel free, to feel accomplished, and to fly high.

From Fly High JB