Nashville nightmare: Deadly fentanyl poisonings after a destination wedding

Imagine a trip brimming with celebration and laughter—Carol Wolfe's son, Josh, embarked from Nebraska to Nashville, eager to witness the heartfelt "I dos" of two dear friends. Little did anyone know that this journey, meant for joy, would take an unexpected turn.

Post-wedding festivities, Josh and a friend, decided to extend their Nashville stay for just one more night—an ordinary decision that would soon become extraordinary. Just moments after capturing a picture, Josh and two others collapsed, resulting in the tragic death of Josh and another person.

Amidst the shock and grief, Carol learned that her son died from fentanyl—a revelation that brought forth more questions than answers. How did this happen? With no history of substance use disorder or drug abuse, how did fentanyl find its way into Josh's life? These are questions that thousands of parents find themselves wrestling with as our nation battles its deadliest drug epidemic in history.

In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, Carol talks about Josh's story and the message that, she thinks, all Americans need to hear. Also, check out more Grieving Out Loud episodes, including the story of a mom who believes her daughter died from drinking a bottle of water that contained diluted fentanyl.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Carol Wolfe: I told him I said, please be careful and stay safe. I'll see you in a few days. I love you. That was the last time. Sorry. It's all right. That was the last time I heard him say it.

[00:00:25] Angela Kennecke: Imagine a trip brimming with celebration and laughter. Carol Wolf's son, Josh traveled from Nebraska to Nashville, eager to witness the nuptials of two dear friends. Little did anyone know. that this journey meant for joy would take an unexpected turn. 

[00:00:43] Carol Wolfe: They left this one establishment, they got to the corner, Josh took a picture of the three of them together with the street sign, and then they stepped down into the curb, and the next thing we know, they were down.

But what 

[00:00:59] Angela Kennecke: exactly happened? With no prior history of substance use disorder or even experimenting with drugs, how did fentanyl find its way into Josh's system? These are questions that thousands of parents find themselves wrestling with as our nation battles its deadliest drug epidemic in history. 

[00:01:18] Carol Wolfe: We had that theory.

It'll never happen to me. Won't happen to my family. 

[00:01:24] Angela Kennecke: You don't have anybody suffering from 

[00:01:25] Carol Wolfe: addiction? No. No. No. But it does happen.

[00:01:34] Angela Kennecke: I'm Angela Kennecke, and this is Grieving Out Loud. This past year, I've had the privilege of traveling around the country, connecting with others who have, like me, lost loved ones to the fentanyl epidemic. Today's guest I met at the DEA Family Summit in Minneapolis. We hope that this episode not only leaves you more informed about the number one killer of Americans under the age of 50, but if you too are grieving the loss of a loved one, or going through a challenging time, You'll find inspiration on how to turn your pain and struggle into resilience and hope.

Carol, I want to thank you so much for joining me for the podcast. It is a pleasure to meet you in person for the second time. We are here at the DEA Family Summit because we both lost someone to fentanyl. Correct. Last time I saw you, we were in Washington, D. C. Correct. You've really jumped in with both feet.

[00:02:34] Carol Wolfe: Yeah, I lost Josh May 3rd of 2022 and by March, I started talking, telling his story. Josh. Yeah. Tell 

[00:02:45] Angela Kennecke: me about Josh. 

[00:02:46] Carol Wolfe: Josh was a great kid. He enjoyed life, his family, and his friends. One of his friends described it to me as, When I first met Josh, I was sitting in a corner because my friends had already left for the night.

And Josh was with his friends, and in Josh's eyes, nobody sits in a corner alone. So he introduced himself, they became friends. And they joined each other in Josh's group at his apartment complex in Omaha. If somebody moved in, he would make it a point to welcome them to the apartment complex and come join us.

And so, yeah, he was a very social, social person.

[00:03:35] Angela Kennecke: Growing up, Josh was part of a close knit family, sharing a strong connection with his older brother and younger sister. They lived in the small community. of Coleridge, Nebraska. 

[00:03:47] Carol Wolfe: When I was growing up, it was probably like 600 people, so it's a very small community. He, as far as we know, never did any type of drugs whatsoever.

He drank alcohol. Like any normal, I guess you call it, we call it, young adult. 

[00:04:05] Angela Kennecke: Even though Josh didn't abuse drugs, Carol says her son did know about the dangers of fentanyl. In fact, he talked to her about it before he left for a trip to Nashville, adding an unexpected layer to this story. So he knew. He knew.

How old was he? 

[00:04:23] Carol Wolfe: 34. 34. So, he went on this trip to Nashville and they went to a destination wedding, him and a bunch of his friends from Omaha. Sounds like fun. It was, you know, he was the type of kid that shared. So, he told me when he was leaving, loaded in the plane, called me when he got there. We had a nice conversation.

And I told him, I said, please be careful and stay safe. I'll see you in a few days. I love you. That was the last time. Sorry. It's alright. That was the last time I heard him say it. Were those 

[00:05:05] Angela Kennecke: your last words to each other? Yeah. You know, that's something I think is actually as painful as it is, and I know why you're crying.

But it's actually a gift, right? It is. Because I have the same thing with my daughter. On Mother's Day, three days before her death, our last words to each other as we said goodbye were I love you. I am so grateful that those were our last words. 

[00:05:30] Carol Wolfe: I am too. I will never take those words for granted 

[00:05:35] Angela Kennecke: again.

Right. And I think. With my other children, that is always our last words to each other now, too. We think about that. You 

[00:05:43] Carol Wolfe: do. You do. And in fact, my grandkids, when they leave the house, they are always giving me a hug. Did Josh have kids? Are these Josh's kids? Josh wasn't married and didn't have kids. But now my little ones, they leave the house and they're always giving you a hug and telling you they love you.

And you know, you don't go to bed angry anymore either. Right. You hold everything close. 

[00:06:10] Angela Kennecke: Right. It teaches you something about life, about the value of life. Exactly.

But before Josh left for the wedding, Carol says she wasn't overly concerned about her son. Instead, she was excited for his friends who were getting married. And 

[00:06:33] Carol Wolfe: I knew a lot of the kids that went with him. It never bothered me once that something bad could happen. I never thought about it. And all his other friends had no idea that he had stayed because they all come home on different flights.

Oh, he stayed? He stayed one extra night. Why? Because one of the other guys stayed too. Oh. And he stayed with his buddy. Sure, okay. So, they were out to the bars and enjoying Nashville, which I understand there's a lot to see. Josh was notorious for his pictures. And his Snapchats and up to the last minute I got a picture sent to me through Snapchat from Josh and he had met up with a kid from Canada and his buddy from Omaha and from what I'm understanding from the investigator was with Josh's timeline They found that the kid from Canada, I thought he was part of the wedding.

He wasn't. They had just met up with him. So they left this one establishment, they got to the corner, Josh took a picture of the three of them together with the street sign, and then they stepped down into the curb and the next thing we know, they were down. All three of them. One survived. His friend from Omaha survived.

Josh and the Canada boy just this week. Metro Nashville police telling us three men were found unresponsive from 

[00:08:08] Barb Walsh: suspected fentanyl overdoses. Two of the men didn't make it. All we can do 

[00:08:12] Angela Kennecke: is continue, continue, continue to bring more awareness to 

[00:08:16] Carol Wolfe: this.

[00:08:22] Barb Walsh: As the 

[00:08:22] Angela Kennecke: deaths made news in Nashville, Carol was back home in Nebraska in shock and grief trying to figure out what happened to her cherished son.

They died right there on the street, right there on 

[00:08:38] Carol Wolfe: the street in Nashville. They found him in the well. On the sidewalk in the courtyard of their hotel, right in downtown Nashville. 

[00:08:46] Angela Kennecke: Just falling over. Mm hmm. Oh my gosh. That is 

[00:08:50] Carol Wolfe: awful. Yeah. There's a lot of the time frame from when the sheriff come to my front door to probably still to this day, just blank.

I've blocked it out. I have a hard time remembering some of this 

[00:09:06] Angela Kennecke: stuff. I was just talking to someone who had done some grief research and she did compare and I've always compared. This kind of trauma and loss to a traumatic brain injury. It 

[00:09:18] Carol Wolfe: does feel that way. It does. It really does. We've lost our loved ones.

I've lost my parents to different things. But this kind of a loss is shattered my heart. Of course. To lose a child.

[00:09:40] Angela Kennecke: While Carol still doesn't have all the answers, autopsy results revealed that Josh died from fentanyl poisoning. The powerful synthetic opioid is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Just 2 milligrams of the drug, equal to about 10 grains of table salt, is considered a deadly dose.

Do they theorize like they bought some pills or what 

[00:10:11] Carol Wolfe: do they? They have given me their theory of, they feel that one of the boys, not Josh, but one of the other two, were the culprit that placed something, so I hate to point fingers. The investigators are telling us that the Canadian boy is what they feel has done this.

[00:10:35] Angela Kennecke: Had the substance? Evidently, yes. And somehow gave it to them? Yes. But they don't know how? They don't 

[00:10:42] Carol Wolfe: know how. Wow. Another theory that they kind of gave us was that, Maybe something was put in their alcohol.

[00:10:55] Angela Kennecke: Law enforcement has found deadly doses of fentanyl in some truly unexpected places, such as baby bottles and fake Jolly Ranchers. A guest on a previous Screaming Out Loud podcast believes her daughter died after drinking a bottle of water that contained diluted fentanyl. Tell me about your daughter, Sophia.

One of four children? She was 24 

[00:11:18] Barb Walsh: years old. She was professionally employed, college educated, worked at a sales territory in Myrtle Beach and got promoted to Charlotte, had just moved into a new apartment in Charlotte on July 5th. She went back up to Boone, where she went to college, and see some friends.

She stopped at an acquaintance's house, and she was thirsty. And she grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and as she does, she just chugged it. What she didn't know was that the water bottle contained diluted fentanyl, and she died immediately on the kitchen floor, and she was not reported as 

[00:11:59] Angela Kennecke: dead for 12 hours.

That is an unbelievable story, and I know everyone listening to this podcast will be shocked to hear that this incident happened and happened to your daughter, and will think, how can that be? How can a bottle of water be in a refrigerator with fentanyl in it? Do you know? I do have some information on 

[00:12:21] Barb Walsh: that.

Our private investor in Gator got ahold of a chemist at Duke University and wanted to know, is it still potent if it's dissolved in water? The answer is yes. It is colorless, odorless, and so it just looks like water. And the speculation is this person was in some pain or had a substance abuse disorder and would take a water bottle to work.

Nobody thinks anything of that. and would dose himself, micro dose himself by the capitol. Wouldn't drink the whole bottle, maybe drink it throughout the day. And we do know that he did go to rehabilitation afterwards.

[00:13:09] Angela Kennecke: If you're interested in listening to more of that interview, check out episode 131, when a water bottle turns deadly, how fentanyl shows up in an unexpected place. We've also posted a link to that episode in the show notes of this podcast. Unfortunately, That mom, Barb Walsh, will likely never know exactly how her child died, and the same can be said about Carol.

Do you think you'll ever get the answer? No. What do 

[00:13:40] Carol Wolfe: investigators say? They have taken the case from an active case to a, it's not closed, but it's just kind of in limbo. 

[00:13:50] Angela Kennecke: I bet it was a whole ordeal to get Josh back from Nashville even to get his body and to go through 

[00:13:57] Carol Wolfe: all that. It did. It took us a while.

It was well over a week between they had to do an autopsy there, they had to do some investigation. So it was over a week and then we did get Josh back and held a beautiful service for him. But We didn't get, like, his phone and some of that stuff back until a good six months. After it all happened, because they went through the steps.

I mean, we had the code. Thankfully, Josh gave the code to one of his friends in Omaha to get into his phone. So we sent that to Nashville and they still, for purposes of trying to prosecute if needed, got the search warrant and that kind of stuff. So that all took time and is still taking time. 

[00:14:50] Angela Kennecke: And the friend who survived, do you have any answers from that person?

No. 

[00:14:55] Carol Wolfe: He don't remember. 

[00:14:57] Angela Kennecke: He doesn't remember 

[00:14:59] Carol Wolfe: anything. Nothing is what he's telling us. 

[00:15:04] Angela Kennecke: Do you think he feels guilty? There's a lot of survivors guilt. I know of one case where three people took some pills together and Two of the young men died and one a brother lived because he was a little bit bigger a little bit heavier So he lived and he has horrible survivors guilt.

[00:15:22] Carol Wolfe: I'm not saying he probably doesn't have survivors guilt Because I know if it, if roles were reversed and he would be gone and my Josh would be here, that Josh would definitely have major, major survivor's guilt. But I guess everybody deals with trauma in their own way. And maybe part of his way is to get back into the party life and travel and, and that kind of stuff.

For me, no. Right. It's hard to understand, right? It is, it is hard to understand. 

[00:15:59] Angela Kennecke: And not having any answers from him. Right. The lone survivor. 

[00:16:03] Carol Wolfe: Right. And you know, I talk to physicians about fentanyl and ask about, you know, the memory loss. And they tell me that if that was a case, which it can be a little short term, but if that was a case, then all the times they've used it in the hospitals, nobody would really have a lot of memory left.

[00:16:26] Angela Kennecke: That's true. But he doesn't say, We took a pill. We did this. No, nothing. No answers. No answers. None. And what about the Canadian man's family? You've been in touch with them? 

[00:16:37] Carol Wolfe: I have. You have? I have. My daughter and I reached out to them through Facebook. And they're just as heartbroken. Of course. Wanting answers.

Like we are, but between Canadian laws and United States laws and I don't know if there's a problem there or what, so. 

[00:16:59] Angela Kennecke: But the investigators have basically told you we have nothing to go on, right? 

[00:17:03] Carol Wolfe: And they couldn't get into his phone because he was from Canada. I don't, I don't know what the law there is.

[00:17:09] Angela Kennecke: And so not having any answers, not having any resolution, how do you live with that? I 

[00:17:17] Carol Wolfe: struggle. Some days is worse than others, but through you, I have learned to be a mom and speak for my heart. That was the advice you gave me when I first started talking and telling Josh's story. Oh, Carol, 

[00:17:38] Angela Kennecke: you're going to make me cry.

And those box of Kleenex 

[00:17:40] Carol Wolfe: is over here. And the first time I spoke, I had never spoke in public before. And I had been to a, I don't know, Yankton somewhere for something, and they told me, Reach out to Angela. And I did. And that's what you told me. You can do this. Speak from your heart as a mom. And that's what I did.

And that's what I do. So before I came here, I spoke at a school in Ponca, and then I drove here. So 

[00:18:10] Angela Kennecke: I have to tell you, Carol, not only am I so touched by you saying that, but also I'm so proud of you. I'm incredibly proud of you. Using your son's death and this horrible thing that happened to you and your family to try to help other people is the most noble thing I think that you 

[00:18:29] Carol Wolfe: can do.

And I feel like it needs to be out there. We need to educate on all of this, you know, we had that theory. It'll never happen to me. Won't happen to my family. You don't have 

[00:18:42] Angela Kennecke: anybody suffering from addiction. 

[00:18:44] Carol Wolfe: No, no, no, but it does happen. Yeah, 

[00:18:47] Angela Kennecke: and have you ever felt ashamed or been made to feel ashamed about the way your son died?

[00:18:55] Carol Wolfe: There's times you'll walk in somewheres And you do feel like they're looking at you like, well, did he really not ever do drugs? Yeah, you do feel that way. But I'm gonna stand up for Josh.

[00:19:14] Angela Kennecke: And stand up she has. In less than a year, Carol has talked to students at more than a dozen schools, with plans to give even more impactful speeches throughout the school year. I speak in schools too, Carol. And I find sometimes when I speak a lot, I have a lot of these engagements. It takes this toll on me to really talk about Emily, to talk about what happened, to kind of relive her death.

As much as I want to do it, as much as I can see it's making an impact on kids, and who knows how many kids will make a different decision. Because they heard Emily's story or Josh's story, but it does take on emotional toll on me. I feel exhausted. Sometimes 

[00:19:55] Carol Wolfe: I Agree with that, you know, and then there's sometimes I get the feeling did they even listen to me?

Did they hear what I was saying? Right? I mean, 

[00:20:05] Angela Kennecke: do they really hear it? But I bet they did I mean some of them did at least 

[00:20:08] Carol Wolfe: because I've had parents come up to me and say Our kids have never told us anything about an assembly at school before, but they come home talking about this. That's rewarding. That is very rewarding.

It makes you feel good and, you know, it's exhausting, but it's rewarding. 

[00:20:26] Angela Kennecke: Exhausting but rewarding. I would agree with you 100%. Yeah. I can't think of anything more meaningful to do, but it takes a personal toll. Right.

In addition to sharing her story with students, Carol is also taking time to learn more about our nation's drug crisis. And meet with officials and other parents who've lost loved ones to fentanyl.

And here we are at the DEA Family Summit, and we're with a lot of parents who are just like us. We're hearing other stories. We're hearing officials, U. S. attorneys and DEA agents talk about what they're doing to try to combat the fentanyl problem. Are you getting something out of this? 

[00:21:15] Carol Wolfe: Yes. I am to listen to each story.

I wish I could sit and listen to everyone's story and share Josh's story. First of all, I feel like some people feel like they're really alone through all this. Well, 

[00:21:28] Angela Kennecke: it's easy to feel alone because it's easy to feel judged or to not have people want you to talk about it, right? People who haven't been through this don't really want to hear someone 

[00:21:36] Carol Wolfe: else talk about it.

And I did ask a couple questions privately to a couple of the speakers already, and I've come up with. Some answers to some of my questions. One of them was Josh's autopsy report stated that he had straight fentanyl and ethanol. Ethanol is alcohol, right? Yeah. Right. Well, when I first got that, I was confused.

I'm like, because you're, you don't know. You're not a medical person. Yeah, no. And so then he had explained to me about the alcohol with the fentanyl. Yeah. Physicians have told me about it too, but had I not visited with him a little bit more about it, I don't think I would've felt a little bit more at ease.

with some of my questions, you know, so he did help me through some of that. The DEA is trying to help. There's a lot of work, like they keep saying, there's a lot of work to be done 

[00:22:27] Angela Kennecke: yet. It's a very complicated issue. There's not just one simple solution. I wish there were. Yeah, I agree. I think really prevention is the key.

But then we talk about prevention and I talk about that a lot. Josh knew about the dangers of fentanyl. 

[00:22:42] Carol Wolfe: Yeah, and he was sharing it. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So he was educated. Yeah.

[00:22:51] Angela Kennecke: At the DEA Summit, I also had the opportunity to sit down with Special Agent in Charge, Justin King. He's responsible for leading the Omaha Division and oversaw operations across seven states. There isn't just one solution, right? No, there's not. What do you think it will take? I 

[00:23:11] Carol Wolfe: think it's a consolidated effort from everybody.

It's from the enforcement side, but it's also from the education, the treatment. And I think that we have to do more just what this summit's about. We have to find ways to expand all of our impact into our communities. We have to get more involved with. educating so our Children don't even start down this road.

King 

[00:23:34] Angela Kennecke: says his division is also unearthing stark ties between Mexican drug cartels and American communities. In fact, agents have pinpointed 26 investigations over the last year in the Midwest alone that tie back to two primary drug cartels. 

[00:23:52] Carol Wolfe: Yes, we're primarily focused on the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco cartel.

They transitioned from methamphetamine to the fentanyl production. And like you said earlier, they leveraged the people transitioning with the regulatory efforts on prescription, diverted prescription drugs. They started to really go in there. And first we saw the heroin, some fentanyl mixed into it, and then evolved to just pure fentanyl, and then they started making the fake pills to look like.

prescription drugs.

[00:24:27] Angela Kennecke: In the midst of it all, Carol is doing her part by sharing her son's story, revealing the deep pain caused by our nation's drug epidemic. For her, losing her son is heart wrenching, and it's even more challenging to see her other children struggle with their own grief.

How has Josh's death affected his 

[00:24:49] Carol Wolfe: siblings? They're closer together now than they've ever been. My oldest son, Michael, told Megan she just had twins. For Twins? Yeah. So he told her, he said, Hmm, I got a big job to do. He says, I got to be an uncle and I got to do Josh's job too. He says, I will fill those shoes.

There would have been an 

[00:25:19] Angela Kennecke: uncle for each twin. 

[00:25:20] Carol Wolfe: Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's hard on him. We talk about it and we move on. But if they don't go by that, we don't talk about it. Michael had the experience before Josh, his fiance's sister. Leah had been involved with experiencing the highs and the lows of drugs and she died at my sister's house.

[00:25:50] Angela Kennecke: So this had touched your family in a little bit of an indirect 

[00:25:53] Carol Wolfe: way. Yeah. And her little boy. I think Isaiah was maybe two, found his mommy. So, yeah, you know, I didn't know what Fentanyl was until then.

[00:26:10] Angela Kennecke: Unfortunately, many parents across the United States share a similar, heartbreaking story. Fentanyl, a drug not widely known a few years ago, has become the main contributor to America's deadliest drug crisis. In the past year, around 112 Americans died from overdoses. making it the leading cause of death for those under the age of 50.

This has left countless parents like Carol grappling with grief. She credits the support of her family for helping her through this devastating time.

Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope Memorial website called More Than Just a Number. They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles. friends. So much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on morethanjustanumber.

org. And not just

[00:27:17] Carol Wolfe: my kids. My immediate family, my sisters and my brother, Jeff's family, our community, you know, it takes a community to help with a lot of things. And 

[00:27:28] Angela Kennecke: most of the community has been good for you. Most has not been judgmental. 

[00:27:32] Carol Wolfe: Right. And every time I can tell his story, my heart hurts. It's exhausting. But yet I think that's just another little piece of a band aid.

to bring that shatterness. For your shattered heart. Yeah, I'm not going to say it's ever going to heal. No, 

[00:27:52] Angela Kennecke: probably not. You learn to 

[00:27:53] Carol Wolfe: live with it. Yeah, but every time I talk, it gets a little bit stronger. The second talk I did, I did in Hardington, Nebraska, and I did it at the school, and the counselor there told me You know, you did a very good job.

I'd never spoke before a crowd of people before 

[00:28:12] Angela Kennecke: takes a lot of courage. Public speaking is the number one fear. You know, I just have all these years of training. I'm not afraid of it anymore, but for most people. Yeah. And you just jumped in and did 

[00:28:21] Carol Wolfe: it. I jumped in with both feet and she said, you did a great job.

Yep. He said, I'm going to tell you something and you can believe it if you want to. But when you're standing up there talking, I seen Josh standing right behind you. And then I knew him. That's it. I'm doing the right thing. This is what I'm supposed to do. 

[00:28:42] Angela Kennecke: You're keeping Josh's memory alive. And I always say, I just want there to be some sense out of a senseless death.

Yes. You know, and that's why I speak about Emily and tell her story too. Not just to keep her memory alive, but to make some sense out of a senseless death. Something that didn't need to happen. Exactly. 

[00:28:59] Carol Wolfe: Exactly. Shouldn't have happened. Shouldn't have happened. Yeah. Faith has a lot to do with how we handle things, and I was born and raised in a good, faithful area, and I almost lost that faith when I lost Josh, but I've started to find it back.

I struggle when people say, well, God chose Josh. Yeah, 

[00:29:26] Angela Kennecke: I don't, I don't believe that either. 

[00:29:28] Carol Wolfe: I will not 

[00:29:29] Angela Kennecke: accept that. I think what happened was because of what people did. Yes. It happened because of freedom of choice. It happened because someone did something and God wasn't saying it's time for me to take Josh now.

Or 

[00:29:42] Carol Wolfe: Emily. No. You know, God don't work in that way. Somebody chose to give our kids the bad, bad stuff and that's kind of where I live with that. 

[00:29:52] Angela Kennecke: Right. You know, I think it's natural to have somewhat of a crisis of faith because you feel like you're You've done everything that you were supposed to do to raise this child.

And there should be some kind of payoff or reward for that, right? It shouldn't be their death. I mean, by any means. Right. And so you feel like you've been abandoned. Yeah, you 

[00:30:11] Carol Wolfe: do. You do. 

[00:30:12] Angela Kennecke: What brought you back or what helped you restore your faith? 

[00:30:17] Carol Wolfe: Right now, my answer to that would say probably my grandkids.

Because if they see me questioning my faith. They're only three and four years old, the oldest two, and I don't want them to never have that faith. I want them to hold on to that faith. So you want to be an example. I do want to be a good example. I do. It's struggling. There's days it's struggling. I have my highs and lows.

You know, when I drove here, I drove by myself. And it's a long way. It is a long ways. And they asked us to bring a picture. So when I got in my car and I put my seatbelt on, I had Josh sitting right there beside me with his picture looking at me the whole way. So I had his undying attention. So did you have a conversation with him?

We did. Yeah. All the way. All the way. You know, and I told him, I said, Josh, I'm doing a lot of this for you, buddy. And I have yet to see a sign from him, but my kids have. So I think we're doing the right thing. And 

[00:31:28] Angela Kennecke: there is a grief counselor that we've had on the podcast a couple of times who has repeatedly said, you need to still have those conversations with your loved one just because they're not physically here.

And he stresses to write to them, but whether you just talk to them while you're in the car and their picture is next to you or you write to them or whatever it is, he says it's very positive and a very healing 

[00:31:49] Carol Wolfe: thing to do. It is. It is. And that's part of my faith is not letting go of him. Um, have them conversations.

And my sister, she lost her husband and she said, you know, he has to listen to me now. And I looked at Josh and on the way here, I said, you have to listen to me for hours. So it did help make the ride a little bit better. 

[00:32:13] Angela Kennecke: I wish I would have had a chance to meet Josh. He just sounds like a wonderful guy.

He was a sweet kid. And I think about the lost potential. You know, I talk about that and he's only 34. Yeah. Had so much of his life ahead of him. I think a lot about even with my daughter as well, like you'll never have that wedding or grandkids. You have some grandkids, but I mean, from Josh. Right, right, right.

And so we just don't know what their lives might have been like. Exactly. And that can take 

[00:32:41] Carol Wolfe: its toll too. It does. It does. I can only imagine what it would be like. 

[00:32:47] Angela Kennecke: And sometimes our imagination 

[00:32:48] Carol Wolfe: is a good thing. It is. Again, going back with faith. Can you only imagine what they're doing up there now? No pain.

No heartache. It's 

[00:33:01] Angela Kennecke: just hard to be separated. It 

[00:33:02] Carol Wolfe: is. Yeah, it 

[00:33:03] Angela Kennecke: is. Well, thank you so much, Carol. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you. Like I said, now I feel like I really know you that we've had a chance to sit down and talk, but you know, we've met and we've talked online and thank you for going out there and telling Josh's story.

Thank you for having the courage to do it. You know, the faith You know, the love and the courage and the hope. Yeah. I think that's really what you're doing is you're keeping that 

[00:33:30] Carol Wolfe: hope alive. Yes, I agree. And I need to thank you because you are part of the reason I do what I do now. So thank 

[00:33:38] Angela Kennecke: you. Well, you're welcome.

I so appreciate 

[00:33:41] Barb Walsh: you.

[00:33:46] Angela Kennecke: We appreciate you taking the time to learn more about one of the biggest crises facing our nation. The fentanyl epidemic leaving a trail of death and devastation for hundreds of thousands of families across the country. If you're struggling with the loss of a loved one, we truly hope you found this episode helpful.

If so, please consider leaving us a positive review and sharing it with friends and family. Your support helps us raise awareness about the drug crisis, break down the stigma surrounding substance use disorder, and connect people with the help they so desperately need. Thanks for being part of our community.

Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wannenberg King and Ana Fy.