Roll On

Today's column is a tribute to Josh Winheld, a Facebook friend, who died Dec. 5, after three decades of living with Duchenne.

I was visiting my parents when he died, and I couldn't get back in time for the funeral. I was feverish when I wrote this piece on Friday, but there is no way a bad cold was going to make me miss marking his passing.

Not when I thought about what Josh went through every day.

In the end he carried a ventilator on his wheelchair. He had a trache inserted in his throat and a defibrillator in his chest to regulate his racing heart.

None of that slowed him down - a memoir, a master's, speaking all over the country when not touring its classic baseball cathedrals - he used his time with a vengeance. As a boy he read he would likely die by 20. He filled 31 years.

So for Josh we cue up a favorite song of mine. I looked for the Ronnie Lane version on YouTube. It had glitches. So here's a Vetiver version. "Roll On, Babe."