Joshua Riaille
Joshua Derrick Riaille was born on Tuesday, December 23, 1986 at 6:17 PM to Evelyn Ng and Hervé Denis Riaille at the Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, California. Although Joshua was an only child, he is survived by family living in Canada, France, Philippines, and the United States.
In 2010, Joshua graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). After college, he stayed in southern California, bought a house in Tustin, and worked as a Service Engineer at Kia Motors America and a Design Engineer at JE Pistons until he shifted to stock investing, which allowed him the time to focus on his medical treatments while traveling the world.
In 2011 when Joshua was 25 years old, he was diagnosed with a rare cancer, epithelioid sarcoma, and had been battling it with years of clinical trials, chemotherapies, immunotherapies, radiation, and surgeries. Despite ongoing medical treatments, Joshua would go on to travel the world with his family and friends, visiting 33 countries and 21states. He also enjoyed adventurous activities including biking, hang gliding, hiking, rock climbing, skydiving, swimming with sharks, and ziplining.
On December 28, 2019, Joshua proposed to Denice Mitchell at Square Room Escape in Irvine, California where the final clue of the escape room led to the engagement ring and Joshua down on one knee. On April 4, 2021 (Easter Sunday), Joshua and Denice Mitchell got married in an intimate backyard ceremony during the pandemic. One year later on February 13, 2021 (Superbowl Sunday), Joshua and Denice Mitchell celebrated Act II of their wedding at Galway Downs in Temecula, California in the presence of all their loved ones.
In spite of his cancer, Joshua spent the time he had here on Earth sharing and living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ touching countless lives for the Kingdom of God.
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There are no amount of words to describe the colorful, larger than life, friend that was Josh Rialle. There isn’t a memory I had during my time in Irvine where Josh wasn’t in. He was the life of our community group and the laugh that could domino tons more laughter after, and he could out-dance anyone and everyone!!! Josh was never afraid to share the truth or his life stories, and his boldness in doing so encouraged so much connection around us and our community. I wish my brother was still here today to enjoy his life with his beautiful wife and family, but I am grateful to have confidence saying that we will see each other again, my friend.
Josh was one of the first people that truly invested and gave me fellowship when I first became a believer. His laugh was contagious and his kindness was second to none. He was silly, ridiculous, and sometimes foolish, but always caring and compassionate. He was an amazing friend that was there for me in our short term missions, senior college trips, visiting me on the east coast, loving my husband more than I do. I am so blessed to get to know him. He loved my family so much he went to Disneyland with his chemo backpack and the kids loved him more than Mickey Mouse. He blessed my kids even more by joining us on great wolf lodge trips, museum trips. Saying he was an amazing friend does not do justice to the big heart that he poured out to everyone around him. He will be immensely missed, although we grieve we know he is now with the Lord and is truly at home.
To the Love of My Life, Joshua Derrick Riaille.
Happy Heavenly Birthday! You would have been 37 years old today, but even in the 36 years you had here, you lived a full life.
God always had a specific plan for your life. Unlike Hollywood stories, you were never meant to be physically healed, or to live to be old and gray, or even be cancer free. However, your life story exudes the love of Jesus Christ in a world that so desperately needs the good news of the Gospel.
In the Bible, Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Your cancer diagnosis was a wake up call that told you to stop worrying about a future that you couldn’t control and a past that was already behind you. It is a reminder to start thinking about what really matters.
In 2011, when you were diagnosed with the rare cancer of epithelioid sarcoma, you saw your cancer as an opportunity. You saw suffering as an opportunity. The urgency in which you saw time pass and how you spent your time transformed to one that was focused on living out the Gospel and sharing the love of Jesus Christ.
Although you were the one diagnosed with cancer, you understood the profound diagnosis of human nature, which is that we are born in sin, spiritually dead, and separated from God. Sin meaning “to fail” or to “miss the mark” with the failure to love God and others. Since Jesus Christ was the only person who did not sin, his sacrificial death on the cross covered humanity’s failures, and his resurrection served to show that only He is the Savior of the world. Your hope in Jesus was not a blind faith, but grounded in the historical reality of Jesus, which is a loving, logical, reasonable, and consistent worldview.
When you died on December 6, I felt like I died too. I not only lost the love of my life, but I had lost a future with you and the dreams we had planned together. Losing you that day also wasn’t an occasion or event that happened once, but happens over and over again