For the Grieving....

Not Actual Joe....

I lost a really great friend this week. Joe was probably one of the best I will ever have and that says a LOT because I have been really blessed in life with some great people. He really stood out though. There are so many people writing things about him and sharing their favorite memories of him because he was pure gold. I needed to write my own feelings about him down mostly because they are mine, but everyone sees a person a different way. I had nothing but love for my friend. I can feel the empty space in me that his soul's departure has left. Right now, it hurts like the dickens.

Joe was one of the first people I met when I started roller derby just a few years ago. The very first night we hung out together, I gave him a ride to our league's first (now annual) Ugly Sweater Party. My car was broken into that night, the window smashed in. He expressed to me that somehow (in his crazy mind) he felt a little responsible, having ridden in with me. I dismissed him, but regardless, the very next morning, there was a mobile window repairman at my place looking to patch up my window. I called him up and yelled at him that he barely knew me! He had no right! He simply answered that he would not let me drive my kids around in the winter cold without a window and he knew that single moms didn't always have the resources to deal with these situations. THAT was just Joe. Well....he won my heart that day. He won it over and over again many days after.

The REAL Joe

He wouldn't really let me ever pay him back for the window, so I told him that I would be his ride to derby practice for as long as he needed one. (He wasn't driving at the time.) We got to be very close and even my kids came to love him. He became the friend I would call to come over for dinner, go to punk shows with, go swimming, and just bum around and watch movies. He was so very smart and not very fun to play trivia games with. He had a Master's degree in biochemistry....so he seemed to retain just about any information that went near his head. He would work on my car in exchange for food. He helped me move and clean out my old place. He would help ANY friend with just about ANYTHING they ever needed and you hardly even had to ask. What he wouldn't do, is ever ask for help.

Everyone who ever knew him, loved him. He was a tall guy with piercings and a mohawk some of the time who wore a stoic expression most of the time. He was nothing like he appeared. He was goofy, dorky, sensitive, weird, awkward, shy, humble, and amazing. I know so many people that miss him so much right now, not the least of whom, his own daughter, Roxanne. She was his life and his light. He loved talking about her more than any other topic in the world.
My heart goes to her and his family. The short time I knew him made a HUGE impact on me. He will never be forgotten because he made me a better person just for knowing him. Rest in peace big guy....you left a Joe-size hole in this world that nobody else can fill.