“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” — Winnie the Pooh
When you lose someone you love, your life changes. When I lost my best friend, Steve, I realized immediately how much my life would change.
Steve was the only “boy” friend I loved and I called him my best friend. We met in Jackson, Mich. He was a neighbor. Since we were the new people in town and anxious to meet new friends I invited Steve and Cindy for dinner. The first time Steve walked into our house, he was mad! He took my hand and told me how upset he was to think that we were the new family on the block and they should have been the ones having us to dinner. Then we both laughed. It now seems as if we spent our life together laughing.
I don’t remember much about that first evening. I only remember how comfortable I felt with him. He sent sparks into my heart from the beginning of our friendship. They still live in my heart today.
Our friendship was built on family fun and games: New Orleans. Sardines. Red Rover. The Dictionary game – he made that one up.
His life was built on kindness. Some of his acts of kindness I have shared with other friends around the world. I have used him as a topic for Bible study discussion. I have held him up as inspiration to friends who needed someone of their own to look up to but never had a Steve in their lives.
The loving-caring act of Steve’s that I cherish the most is the day he surprised me and appeared at my front door. It was the birthday of my best friend, Pat. I had planned a party for her at a restaurant downtown. April woke up that morning with a high fever. She couldn’t go to school, which meant I couldn’t go to the party. I called my friend Cindy, who was planning on attending Pat’s party and asked her to step in and take charge for me. No problem.
I settled April in the TV room with a book, changed my party clothes, and the next thing I knew, the front doorbell rang. There stood Steve, The Executive, in his suit and tie holding a McDonald’s bag. He simply walked into the house and told me, “I’m here to take care of April. You better hurry up and get ready for Pat’s party.”
Greater love hath no man than to give up a part of his busy day at a corporate office to take care of a friend’s sick child. I think it was that day that I realized Steve was the one man I could call my best friend. And I did — for the rest of his life.
Some people come into our lives with a whisper and last a moment. Steve came stomping into my life with such a power of friendship that I was changed forever, in the twinkling of his eye. Then he left this earth too soon.
