Joshua Cunningham Miller

Joshua Cunningham Miller Joshua Cunningham Miller, outdoorsman, world traveler and Boddhisatva, reached his final summit at his home on June 14th, 2023, after kicking ALS’ ass for the past year and a half. He was 47 years old. Born on July 2nd, 1975 to Chip and Kathryn Miller, Josh made an early entrance into the world after his laboring mother drove herself to the hospital in Reno, NV in the family’s 1969 blue VW bus. The youngest (and the coolest) of three kids, Josh spent most of his childhood in Boulder, CO after the family moved from Reno in 1977. Some of his early childhood hobbies included making mud pies in the creek, riding bikes with his brother and sister, playing cops and robbers in the thicket behind his childhood home, camping, fishing and road-tripping with his family, watching fireworks from the roof of the garage on the 4th of July, sleeping under the stars on the family’s deck and playing dress up, (some of our favorites were his cowboy outfit and his 1980’s plastic plate like Darth Vader mask). Josh attended Boulder Valley Public Schools until he was 13 years old, at which time he moved with his parents and his sister to Berlin, Germany, where he attended John F Kennedy Schule. A self-proclaimed “spoiled Pan Am Kid,” Josh had many amazing experiences and travels in the three years that the family lived abroad, not the least of which was being able to stand on the Berlin Wall within 24 hours of the borders to East Germany opening in November of 1989. He spent his 14th birthday in Dubrovnik, Croatia jet skiing on the Adriatic Sea and eating lobster with his family, ate Thanksgiving dinner at a Pizza Hut in London after doing some back-to-school shopping with his family, surprised his family as the lead in a high-school theater production after traveling to Brussels, Belgium with the theater program, took a class trip to Nuremburg, Germany to see the sights and visit the Christmas markets, made the varsity basketball team at the age of 14 (probably due to his short stature), and took a summer road trip through 13 countries with his parents and sister. Obviously, he lead a very sheltered life with very few opportunities to branch out, (we blame our parents). In June of 1991 Josh moved with his family back to their home in Boulder, CO, where he attended and eventually graduated from Boulder High School in 1994, after spending many hours night skiing after school on the ski slopes of nearby Eldora Ski Resort. (His mode of transportation at this time was the previously mentioned blue VW bus). As a result of the afore mentioned sheltered nature of his childhood, Josh was often a little hard to find once he was turned loose. He attended the University of California San Francisco for the first two years of his college career, before transferring to the University of Montana in the Fall of 1996 where he was able to spend copious amounts of time outdoors in a wilderness studies program and which, in his own words, absolutely defined his college career. After taking a semester off to travel to South America with his best friend Matt, he graduated in 1999 with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Wilderness Studies. After that he was really, REALLY hard to find! Over the next seven years, (and because he had never been anywhere interesting), Josh did lots of traveling, had a few super cool jobs and lived in some really amazing places. He built trails for the forest service in Alaska and Arizona, learned carpentry, spent two summers hanging iron at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, set fire lines as a Montana Hotshot, and spent 3 years living in Taos working for an ISP company. It was during this time in his life that his family would often spend a lot of time wondering where he was, until he would call us from a roadside gas station in a blizzard, just to say hi. (By this time, the heater was no longer working in the VW bus, but he was still driving it). After losing his mom in 2006 to the same stupid disease that came after him, he returned to Boulder to be close to his old man and spend time with his nieces. He dabbled in Buddhism, and ultimately decided that his purpose in life was to provide care and compassion for others. He was accepted to the Nursing program at the University of Colorado, Denver where he was paired up with a very cute lab partner named Angela Kreuger. They graduated in the Spring of 2011, were engaged and Josh took a job on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation where he had zero orientation and was immediately promoted to charge nurse. (He utilized Google a LOT during this particular career change). Josh and Angela were married at their octagonal home in Whitefish, MT in June of 2013, and they eventually moved to Missoula where Josh worked as an Emergency Department nurse until he retired in February of 2022, shortly after his ALS diagnosis. Josh had a short bucket list the included the following four items: To outlive his dad, to make his new house into a home, to take in the natural beauty of the outdoors and for all of us to do what makes us happy. (Much to our dad’s dismay, we were unable to find a way for the first thing to happen without it looking suspicious, so he was once again line jumped by yet another relative). Josh spent that last year and a half remodeling his home, visiting with his family and friends, taking lots of therapeutic drives through the mountains and was able to do some camping and road-tripping to some of his favorite places, including Utah, New Mexico and Southern Colorado. From the get-go, Josh’s attitude was always that he’d been lucky and had an amazing life. In the last months of his life, there were a lot of fist bumps and a lot of middle fingers, (these became the universal signs for “That’s awesome!” and “Nope, I don’t like that”). After a peaceful seven-hour therapeutic drive on his last full day of life, Josh’s wandering feet took him out of our world and onto the next one, where he is likely enjoying some margaritas and a lot of Efrain’s Mexican food. Since he checked out so early, Josh is survived by a whole bunch of people who will miss him every day for the rest of their lives, including his dad, Chip Miller, his second mom, Bonney Eken, his older brother, Nick Miller, his favorite sister, Sara Neely (Jason), his amazing nieces, Hannah and Jamie Kate, his close friends and surrogate family members Angela Miller and Matt Shimanek, as well as a large extended family of uncles, aunts and cousins, including his camping and kayaking buddy, cousin Chad Miller, who was a great friend and huge support to him. He is preceded in death and is most likely trying to keep up with his mom, Kathryn (Cunningham) Miller. In recognition of Josh’s wishes, there will be no formal service held. Instead, his family and some close friends will spend the next several months scattering scoops of him across the mountains of Montana and Colorado, at his request. “Go easy, and triumph!”-Josh Miller