JANUARY 5 • 2023 | 13

It took multiple attempts, four different 
rehabs and some painful, disappointing 
relapses, but, in 2017, Joshua got clean and 
has stayed clean ever since. He’s managed 
to pull his life around, even finding and 
marrying his beshert, Stevie DuFresne, in 
February 2022. 
“That’s a miracle right there,
” said a very 
proud Joey. 

BECOMING MITZVAH MAN
After Linda passed away, Joey felt lost and 
miserable at first. 
“Then I realized I had a choice: I could 
continue to stay at home and feel depressed 
or I could go out and be happy. I made a 
conscious decision to push myself,
” he said.
Joey turned to his new friends at 
Friendship House for support.
“I began learning chassidus with them. 
I learned about the soul and what I had to 
do to honor Linda and make her happy 
in the afterworld … I didn’t skip a beat. I 
started learning Torah and doing mitzvot 
in honor of Linda’s soul,
” Joey said. 
Since Joshua was unable to do it at the 
time, Joey took it upon himself to go to 
shul every morning and say Kaddish for 
Linda.
“Now it’s just part of my routine. I still 
go to shul every morning, then I run 
around all day doing mitzvahs,
” Joey said. 
After shul, he heads over to Dakota 
Bread to say hello to his friends there, 
then picks up his daily Starbucks from 
Soul Café in West Bloomfield.
“The kids there are like my kids,
” Joey 
said. “They especially love seeing Rosie.
”
His constant companion, Rosie 
Rosenberg, was named by Linda when 

she was very sick. “I’m not dying without 
naming someone after my mother,
” she 
declared in November 2016. Rosie attended 
obedience school and became certified as a 
therapy dog in 2017. 
“My mitzvah mobile just evolved,
” Joey 
said. 
He drives multiple daily carpools for 
kids who live in West Bloomfield and 
attend school in Oak Park, does airport 
runs and makes deliveries for people who 
are homebound. Joey is delighted that he 
purchased his car in March 2018 and has 
already put 130,000 miles on it!
Joey also visits people in Jewish hospice, 
senior living homes and wherever there’s 
someone who needs a pick-me-up. 
Wherever he goes, he offers a listening ear. 
“I visited a World War II vet every day 
for the last six months of his life,
” Joey said. 
“He had a lot to get off his chest, shared a 

lot of stories. It’s a very special thing to be 
with people in the last chapter of their lives. 
I’m so blessed to be able to do this.
”
Giving to others has given Joey a 
renewed sense of purpose. “My life is 
fabulous; I couldn’t be happier,
” he said. 
Joey has also made it his mission to 
break the fear of dogs, especially common 
among Chabad kids, and has become the 
candy man in shul. 
“These are all the joys that I could ever 
ask for,
” Joey said. “I have all these kids 
in my life, and they love me. I give them 
lollipops every Shabbos! I’m the luckiest 
guy in the world.
”
After watching Joey constantly volunteer 
to help others and run to do a mitzvah, his 
friends and fellow members of The Shul 
in West Bloomfield banded together and 
surprised him with the car sign for his 67th 
birthday. 
As painful as his losses have been, 
Joey has also found comfort through 
spirituality. 
“I wasn’t this spiritual growing up, 
but now I feel different about my life, 
knowing that God controls everything. I 
reached out to God — for me that was the 
answer. It changed my life,
” Joey said. “My 
daughters think I’m a little cuckoo, but 
that’s OK!”
He completely understands where 
they’re coming from.
“If you’
d told me 10 years ago that one 
day I’
d get up in the morning, stick a 
yarmulke on my head — with hairspray, 
no less, because there is no hair on my 
head! — I would have said you’ve got 
the wrong guy!” Joey said. “No one ever 
knows what God has in store for them.
” 

LEFT TO RIGHT: Joey and Linda. Joey with his children: David and Joshua in back, Kelly, Melissa and Stevie in front.

Joey Roberts with Rosie outside his mitzvah 
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