We will miss  him and his smile, was such a good friend to Lee Garrett and rest of our family.   He will watching over all of you now, likely trying to help when ever he can.

God bless and keep you

Virginia Garrett

Joe was always a true friend and I am going to miss him for the rest of my days. 

FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF JOSEPH:

If you are not able to join us this Friday for the services, you are welcome to livestream beginning at 8 am.  Directions to do this are as follows:

dignitymemorial.com
In search button, enter Joseph Lee Varela
Two obituaries will pop up.  Select the one with Joseph's photo
In middle of page under services you will see link to livestream.  The livestream time will run from 8am to 10am.

On behalf of the family,  thank you for your continued love and support.  

Best,

Nancy Varela 

Joe, aka (Joeness). This was a nickname we gave to him. He wasn't too fond of this nickname in the beginning when my husband called him Joeness for the first time. His reply was! No no no! No Joeness! (Him making a funny face signaling his finger left and right). Lol! Love this. But, after a while, it grew on him and he didn't mind it at all. Mind you, we're the only ones who could call him Joeness and it would be acceptable, lol. We love that wit about him. Joe always had a great sense of humor. He'd always make everyone laugh with his witty jokes. We will miss your laugh Brother. We remember hearing your laugh like it was yesterday. This is what we loved about him. Joe (Joeness) was such an amazing beautiful soul. He was our best friend/ brother. We will truly miss hanging out with him, having face-time calls, sharing stories of our daily lives, listening to our favorite 80's jams & Type O  Negative, and sharing our love for food and cooking amazing different meals. We miss you and  love you so much Joeness.  💖🙏

If it wasn't for Joseph, I wouldn't know what I would be doing for a living. I was in my early 20's, in that time where we think about what we're doing with our lives in worry. I met him thru Mateo at a hangout and we became friends from deep intellectual conversations. As we talked, he mentioned to check out machining school (NTMA) and what a machinist is. about 10 years later, I'm a traditional rare tool and die maker just as he was.

He saved my eyeball one time. (yes, you read that correctly). When i got laid off from a shop, Joseph offered a small 2 day gig at his job in Riverside to help out.  I was running a production job just feeding a machine small parts and blowing the chips off. On the 2nd day driving on my way back from eating lunch, a small alluminum chip just happened to been in my hair and fell on my left eyelash and went into my eye. I was freaking out. I parked and ran to the restroom and Joseph saw me stressing out and asked what was wrong. He took a good look and said "We have to douche it out) squirting water into my eye to flush it away. it was really in there. close to going in my head. He grabbed a squirt nozzle bottle and said "Okay here we go" and after many tries and "OUCH!" later, i saw the small chip the size of a small dot like a pencil tip shine in the sink. I thanked him so much.

Years later he drove up to Oakland to see my band play when i was on tour. It felt great to see him again. If i had known that was the last time i'd ever see him... I would have had so many photos of us together. 

I'll miss you Joseph. Thank you. for helping me and effecting me positively, skillfully, and humbly. Love ya brother.

I met Joe some years ago. We shared a love for cooking, though, he often thought of everything in an "engineer way" which I often found annoying. We also had a mutual love of the movie Maximum Overdrive and laugh any time we used the quote, "I don't give a ladybug!"
I also nicknamed him Joey, which he hated, but that just gave me more reason to call him that.
He took me to the Natural History Museum for my birthday one year because I knew I had a love for dinosaurs and I was there to help take care of him when he got into his motorcycle accident. Although he had moved further away, we stayed in constant contact. Shared stories, goals, jokes. I'm going to miss him a lot. I'm going to be constantly looking at my phone expecting to see a text message from him. Even though he would try to hide it, he was a sensitive and caring person.

Joe has been a dear friend for many years. A place of comfort, a source of inspiration, he's been there for me through so many of life's changes. I will miss spending hours on the phone with him, talking about anything and everything. I will miss giving each other career advice and pushing each other to be our best. I will miss going on adventures together and the endless laughs we'd share, exploring cities and seeing what trouble we could get into. Joe was an individual of the highest quality. I am so lucky to have known him, and the world feels a little darker with him gone. 

Joseph was such an incredible individual with a beautiful mind. He is loved by many and will be truly missed. He was taken too soon, but his machinist legacy will always go on by his family and friends. I will miss listening to Depeche Mode with you and hearing you call me Little Bee. Your friendship is greatly cherished by all of us. Soar high beautiful soul!

Joe was a great machinist. He helped me get into the industry. He was also incredibly smart and really fun to hang around with. I wish we could have hung out more, but opportunity took him to where he was needed. He will be greatly missed.

OBITUARY

Joseph Lee Varela

8 March, 1985 – 2 August, 2022

Pierce Brothers Crestlawn Memorial Park and Mortuary

Show your support

Add a Memory

Share Obituary

Get Updates

Services