Josh Woodruff sent a text message to his parents on New Year’s Eve.
"Before the night begins, just wanted to say Happy New Years," he wrote, "I am so ridiculously thankful for you. Very much pumped to see what 2016 has for us."
It would be the last time his parents would hear from him.
"We couldn't ask for a better…goodbye," said Mark Woodruff, Josh's father.
On the morning of New Years Day, New Orleans police say a hit and run driver in a black sedan struck Woodruff, and dragged him roughly six miles. Police are still looking for the driver.
Meanwhile, family and friends gather in Omaha to grieve.
Josh, 28, graduated from Omaha Burke High School, and furthered his education at Harvard.
"He made everybody he encountered feel that love of God, and feel valued," said Caren Woodruff, Josh's mother.
That love and appreciation shows on a Facebook page ‘Remembering Josh Woodruff’. The page has garnered over one thousand likes. Posts of grief and support, and photos in memory of the kindred soul, give his mother Caren some comfort.
"Though it doesn't take the pain away," Caren said, "but it does make it slightly more bearable."
Caren and Mark Woodruff said their son Josh touched every life he encountered. They will miss his kindness towards others, and his charitable soul.
"Josh loved the way God loved, he saw everybody in the ideal, he saw them in terms as the best person he could be, and he was always cheering them on to be that person,” said Mark Woodruff, “he also accepted them in the real, he didn't judge them for their weaknesses or failings."
