VANCOUVER, Wash. (KPTV) - A Vancouver family is honoring their late son by sending his remains to live amongst the stars for a few years before falling back into Earth’s atmosphere as a shooting star.

After Heather Jenson lost her son Joshua in July, she wanted to find a way to honor his life which was bound by a wheelchair after being diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy as a little boy.

“I call him my out-of-the-box thinker because he was always thinking outside the box,” Jensen said.

It was an “out-of-the-box” idea that Jensen decided to use to memorialize her son who she said had an inquisitive mind, always looking to the stars. So, it was the stars she decided should be his final resting place.

While it seems like an impossible ask, the service exists, and it has existed for 30 years. Charles Chafer co-founded Celestis Inc. in 2004, launching cremated remains into space as a memorial service for someone who always dreamed of going to space, someone just like Joshua.

“They want to light the biggest candle on the planet in celebration of a loved one,” Chafer said. “The notion of connecting to the universe and that we’re all stardust anyway, to begin with, and so that notion of rejoining the universe is a little more ethereal and spiritual.”

However, for Joshua’s mother, it means even more. Before Josh died at the age of 23 from COVID-19, she explained because of his degenerative disease, he never could go very far, but now he’ll be going as far as man has ever gone before.

“I think what it is for us is more like a symbol of him, taking flight,” Jensen said. “Just always being grounded, his body grounded on earth, bound by his disease, so for me, it’s like a symbol that his remains are free, they’re just free. They’re more than free. They’re all the way out in space free.”

While a portion of Joshua’s physical remains will be taking flight in just a few months, Heather said his soul is already there.

“I think he’s already up in space, running around, running amuck, telling jokes,” Jensen said. “The rocket just symbolizes that freedom that I’m no longer bound here and maybe in his heart, in his mind, he knew he would be free too when he was gone.”

Joshua’s remains will be sent to space sometime in April 2025 along with 170 other souls on board.

The Jensen family will not be able to attend the launch due to their other son Luke also having muscular dystrophy, making travel very difficult. However, they said they plan to host a watch party to see their son finally take flight.