I had the honor of speaking at Steve’s service on Saturday and I’ve been asked to share it here:
With great love comes great pain and with great loss comes the greatest pain of all…
Steve was one of my closest friends in the world and a genuinely great guy. He was the type of person that made me feel like I belonged somewhere in the chaos of life. He accepted me with all my faults. Steve saw me and my family through happy times and some really difficult times. He’s been part of both of my kids, Max and Hailey’s, lives from the time that they were babies. He was our first friend to hold my daughter Hailey in the hospital when she was born. He attended many birthdays, graduations, holiday parties, and cookouts with us. We have had some really great times together and I had naïvely thought that we would have many more years to make memories.
He has undoubtedly left every person who knew him with a wonderful, beautiful, or hilarious memory. In my case I have all of those. To be a little more accurate I have over two decades of all of those.
He had a lot of passions. He loved music, sports, Disney, movies, guns, the outdoors, his friends, family, Nic and the boys.
Nicole, I want to thank you for the care you provided for Steve over the last several years. I felt a lot of comfort in knowing that you were there for Steve through all his health battles and surgeries. You took good care of him. You truly honored your vow of in sickness and in health. He loved you, Keith, Michael and Steven and if he could have chosen, he would have been with all of you for many more years to come. I’m so very sorry for your enormous loss. I hope you know that we are here for you.
Another thing that gives me comfort is conversations Steve had with me in months leading up to his death. We talked about his belief in god and his church. His faith was stronger than I’d ever seen it.
I’m going to miss the game nights, movies, concerts and regular chats and texts we would exchange in between visits.
He did things that made no sense but were funny nonetheless like when he would lengthen my kids names to something like Hailey Madeline Ann Marie Pitman. Both of my kids in fact only have one first name and one middle name. When he would say “hey Hailey Madeline Ann Marie Pitman how are you doing?” We would roll our eyes and giggle. It was about the little things like how he would text me for nearly every holiday, and birthday or how he was totally willing to have deep conversations about religion, life, fears, family, and death or how he would remind me how fast time passes. He would say “she’s starting kindergarten before you know it she will be off to college”. He really is right, time passes so quickly.
So where do we go from here? How do we possibly carry-on without our dear brother, son, nephew, uncle, friend, husband, step-dad, coworker, and comedian? The only way I can think of getting through this is to reflect on all of the beautiful memories we did have, and try to honor his memory, by doing things that he would have loved. So get out there, go to those concerts, the haunted houses, game nights, movies, sporting events, Super Bowl parties, Disney trips, roadtrips, and cookouts or make the trip to whatever sporting Hall of Fame he wanted to see next. Do those things and think of Steve. ❤️
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