Taming Josh's Dragon

In preparation for writing this book, and to help establish a time line for our story, I obtained many of Josh’s medical records from Dr. McConnell and Warren General Hospital. Dr. McConnell assisted in obtaining Josh’s records from Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Initially I was not aware of how the review of these hundreds of pages would affect me, immediately and traumatically taking me back to those extremely distressing times. Writing this manuscript, there were months at a time when I was compelled to take a break from those agonizing memories. I have incorporated into my story many of our difficult medical experiences in order for you, the reader, to understand the extent of Josh’s health history. The intention is not to overwhelm you with medical descriptions and terms. Rather, it is an account of the life experiences of a little family, a challenge-strewn voyage through a child’s life journey and my discovery of the pure and unconditional love of a precious young boy. This story describes Josh’s bold passage along our shared voyage as a lovely child with a strong, resilient spirit, who happened to be burdened with a life-long chronic, life-threatening disease. For Josh, me, and our story, use of the term “dragon” has multiple layers of meaning. A peeling back of those layers reveals that Josh had had an affinity for dragons since he’d started a Shotokan Karate class at the age of three. Dragons are known to play a large part in Japanese culture; I still have his ferocious-looking silver dragon ring and red-eyed dragon pendant. In addition, his school mascot is a fierce Dragon. Lastly and most importantly, I considered Josh’s lifelong battle with lung disease a frightful dragon that needed to be tamed. I know deep in my soul that writing our story was a collaborative effort from this side of life and from beyond, all beautifully colored with our love. Josh guided my hand as each word went down and I healed more with each emerging, although frequently agonizing, paragraph. He infused his spirit’s strength into mine to complete our beautiful, entwined life story. I now ask myself if it is really possible that our love has increased because this tale is finally on paper, helping others to more easily navigate the same tortuous path. What a precious gift sharing Josh’s life was for me. I have learned over the years that Josh had touched many other lives in an incredibly positive manner as well. I will forever be thankful for the time I had with him and will always treasure the precious memories we made together. I am so very grateful to have known him and am honored to have been bestowed the title “mother” of this delightful, courageous child and will hold his beautiful spirit forever in my mind and my heart. Thank you, God, for this precious child-gift, a soul-teacher then, now and forever. I have only just recently understood that the worst day of my life brought me a depth of appreciation I could never before have imagined. It gave me a perspective from the place of gratitude for being blessed to have known this child, for having been gifted fifteen-and-a-half brief—yet immeasurably valuable—years with him. Most importantly, I am grateful for the significant life-lessons of unending joy, selflessness and incredibly profound love of life that he taught and continues to teach me. Until we are together again, Josh, I love you forever and always.