Dear Nancy,
I am sure that
we have no idea of the sense of loss that you and your daughter are feeling
right now. I hope that I am not around to experience that type of profound
sorrow with a loss of someone like Steve, as my heart would surely break. We
all rarely take the time to appreciate one another as we should; only realizing
how special someone is when they are gone. That was not the case with Steve
though. Just being around him, his infectious laugh mostly, made my life better
somehow. There are some people who you do learn to appreciate while they are
with us. Steve was one of them.
At your house,
after the ceremony, I walked around the party with my beautiful daughter, and
the lyrics to a James Taylor tune kept floating through my mind. "So the
sun shines on this funeral, just the same as on a birth, the way it shines on
everything that happens here on earth....". I couldn't help but try to
make some sense of it all. Trying to come to some resolution of a beautiful birth
and the passing of a beautiful person. I guess people have struggled with this
mystery forever. Steve would have said that I was full of shit, and to have
another beer. I will do that, and will think of him many, many times.
I do know one
thing for sure though. I was lucky to know him.
Love,
Pete, Melissa,
Stephen, and Emily