In Memory

A few weeks after my partner Will and I got together, we went on an adventure to Provincetown — him, me, and thirty "DC gays" crammed into a house for the Fourth of July. Tell me that doesn't sound like a reality show in the making.

But during that weekend, something real happened. A set of core friendships began to form — Eamon, Dez, and Josh.

Josh was one of those planning gays — spreadsheets for every trip, color-coded bags, the works. He made things happen. He showed up prepared, so everyone else could just show up. That was Josh: quietly holding the whole thing together while making it look effortless.

But what I will carry with me — what I will never stop carrying — is the way Josh saw people. There was a core sweetness in him, a way of finding the very best in you even when you couldn't find it yourself. He saw you with every bit of his soul. With everything he was. And he loved you like that.

Our friendship was built on showing up for each other. Late-night phone calls. Evenings under the stair, diving deep into our respective emotional states. The kind of conversations that go long past the time you meant to stop talking — because the honesty between you is too good to cut short.

He once told me that he loved that I never gave him anything but the real me — that I didn't seem to care what the world thought. I've thought about that a lot this week. Because that's exactly what he gave to everyone around him too. Only the real Josh. All of him, every time.

He was family. As close to me as any brother I have ever had.

Regret is a selfish thing, and I try to live my life as selfless as possible. But in moments like this, I keep coming back to the same thought: I am never going to hear his voice again. Never going to have another one of those heartfelt conversations. Never going to feel the deep, bone-warming embrace of one of his hugs.

My father once told me: you get a handful of real friends in this life. Friends that if you ever called them and told them to bring a shovel, their only question would be — can I drive, and can we get chicken when we're done.

That was Josh.

You get five friends like that in your life, if you are lucky. I now have one less.

It is moments like this that life feels like a feckless thug. The pain of losing a friend like Josh won't simply fade away. And honestly — why should it? That ache you feel deep in your chest is the result of the hole created by their loss. It hurts, but in a good way. It means they made a mark on your life. One that will never leave you.

Sure, the pain goes away. But not the longing — nor should it. When you speak of friends long since past, and the pain has quieted, the hurt of love should remain. For it is the greatest reminder of a friendship: a longing for a person missed but not missing, gone but not forgotten.

Josh — I loved you then, and I love you now. Thank you for always seeing me.

To anyone reading this: hold your people close. Tell them what they mean to you. Do it today. Do it in the ordinary moments, not just the big ones. Josh understood that. He lived it. Let that be the thing we carry forward for him.

— Joey Watson