There are some days that I have wanted to forget and start over, and even change the outcome or the prognosis if possible.

But today, even in coming face to face with the hardest of hard situations, I want to remember every single detail.

On this day, we honored Josh Brown. My husband, my friend, my love.

We took a lot of big deep breaths and walked in together as a family to a room full of family and friends. We shared stories of Josh’s life, showed clips of him speaking God’s truth; we laughed, cried and leaned into this big mess. God was honored and so was the man we came to celebrate.

The flowers, photos, media, music and messages weaved together in a way that only God could design. God’s sense of humor with the weather also made me smile. The morning sunny, with a major rain storm in the afternoon, that cleared up just in time for the 6 p.m. potluck, and stayed clear the rest of the evening with a few light sprinkles at 8.

Friends and family shared Josh stories in small groups and through the loud speaker. My amazing group of friends organized the music, tables for the potluck and added special touches that reminded me again of their love and friendship - from many kinds of lemonade to peacock cupcakes and even goofy Casey’s pizza. It was a true good-old-fashion potluck. Josh would have loved it, the fellowship, community and more. He may have even thrown out one of his favorite Greek words, Koinonia.*

The evening wrapped up with a lantern release. Groups gathered to light the large lanterns, with a little more than 40 lifting in staggered breaths into the night sky. It was beautiful. Tears flowed down my face as I leaned into the moment of “letting go.” It’s going to take me a real long time to truly “let go” but tonight did my heart good. My spirit was lifted too. There were even a few comic moments where one lantern landed precariously in a tree and another ran into a person's back. Thankful it all ended safely.

As I stood with a few last friends at the end of the night, the song of one of our most favorite artists, Josh Ritter rang out. Homecoming. While the lyrics don’t reflect our story, the chorus of Homecoming made me think of all of our friends coming back “home” together for this night – a night where we honored Josh’s homecoming to heaven.

Today was truly special.

I will rest a little easier tonight knowing that we made it through this day.

Thank you God once again for Josh Brown. ​We are all better because of his life here and the time we had together, even though we all agree it was too short.

Learn more about the word Koinonia


In case you missed it, here's a link to the full obituary posting.

Here’s a link to the recorded service: vimeo.com/365315669
​

*Donation Note - Josh has experienced a lot physically. He had a lung removed and thyroid gland removed, faced cancer four times and more. We are honoring Josh (and Jenn's) desire to continue to help make a difference through medical research with a whole body donation to The Genesis Legacy Program.