May 2021
My brother Steve had a birthday one week ago. He turned 85, or would have had he lived. Let me show you my tribute to him, delivered at his on-line wake.
I’m Kenn, Steve’s younger brother, have been all my life.
I could be crying a lot here. I certainly had my share while putting together the slide show you just watched. We can all do our crying together at the loss of this extraordinary man. We share that.
Instead I’d rather let you in on some of the moments you wouldn’t know about, experiences shared just by Steve and me. Here’s a look at the man in ways you hadn’t expected.
There was the time hanging out at the beach in Florida. I brought over a couple paper plates with hot dogs and chili and set them down on the web beech chair. Up comes a wind and blows over one of the plates. “Aww, Steve,” I said, “your lunch just fell into the sand.”
Like his sandy lunch, all kinds of things went off the rails for Steve, who endured a number of monumental challenges in his life, from having a leg nearly blown off in Vietnam, to 59 days in the hospital with pancreatitis. Also two strokes, margarita night and having me as a brother.
I have many stories about him but they contain so much swearing and cussing, I must skip them now. But still, there are the stories.
There was the three-week coma, while healing from pancreatitis. You know that Steve fancied himself a warrior, right? Did he just lie in that hospital bed for two months? Oh no. Rather he took this time to cruise some fantastic journeys. He sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in his immense bronze-plated ship. He got to occupy, but rejected, the office of President of the United States. He took a little time to partially dismantle the core of the Universe, and then reassemble it. And then he had us all celebrate Saint Stephen’s Day! In response, Marisa said, “But Dad, you’re Jewish.”
Fully recovered from this episode, Steve and I grabbed our backpacks and escaped the linear world for some time in the Cohutta Wilderness in north Georgia. On a break at the top of a long climb, we shed our packs and engaged in some lively conversation. We were idly slapping at some logs with long sticks. When I learned to backpack, I was taught that this is what boys do.
Here we are, yakking away when Steve hit one log particularly hard and a shard flew up and caught him squarely on the bridge of his nose, a target rather unlikely to miss. This is one time he said a very bad word.
There was some blood, there were more bad words and there was some deviation of his septum, maybe not so much that it was what you would first notice, but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
After some time of Steve pretending he wasn’t in pain, and me pretending I wasn’t laughing at him, he calmed down and we began to hike again. Then he swore me to secrecy. “Especially don’t tell Arlene,” his wife. I agreed, but I had my fingers crossed.
When Lisa, my squeeze, met Steve, she said, “There is no question you guys are brothers. You look alike, you think alike and you have the same sense of humor.” At which point, Steve and I both said, “Yes!” at exactly the same moment. We’re conjoined at the funny bone.
He wasn’t always a jerk. There was the time when I drove him to a conference of shrinkologists in West Virginia. When we walked into the main hall, folks swarmed around him, hugs and kisses and tons of compliments. One colleague threw his arms around Steve and called him “AlphaMensch.” This impressive group of professionals were genuinely happy to see him. They basked in his energy. I’m thinking, “This is so cool, but hey, I look like him. Can’t I get a hug outta this?” Little brother syndrome.
And speaking about being his little brother, I looked to Steve to reveal the secrets of life. After all, he was in medical school so he should know. When I was eleven, at my asking, Steve explained to me how life works. Well, not actually the secrets of life, but the secret of birth. Well, not exactly the secret of birth, which isn’t really a secret, but the process of pregnancy. Umm, no, still not quite accurate. What he actually did was reveal to me the world of the birds and the bees, without once referencing birds or bees. He told me the basics of how sex worked, y’know, the mechanics, thus saving our prudish father from what could have been a mortal embarrassment if he had to tell me. Dad didn’t talk about such things. Steve did. Sometimes endlessly. I liked that about him. Now, because of my big brother who was in medical school and therefore knew everything, I know how to have sex.
Along these lines, sort of, some of you may know this: Steve loved to get naked.
How could I forget the time he came to visit me in my home. My kitchen has a large glass door leading out to the yard bounded on one side by the street and a sidewalk. It was in front of this door that Steve chose to do his morning stretches, a daily routine that he would usually perform before getting dressed for the day. So he’s exercising in front of the glass door, in my house, in my neighborhood, naked! And we look alike! My neighbors commented later how impressed they were by the show I put on. Telling them it wasn’t me didn’t convince anyone otherwise.
I could say that Steve was not modest. I feel compelled to explain that in my opinion, he had little to be modest about.
Here’s a story. Someone should have sworn me to secrecy on this one. When we were kids, often great tumult ensued. Every so often, usually during dinner, someone would ask, “Where’s Steve?” The answer usually was, “He’s in the bathroom.” Were we concerned about his digestive system? Nope. We knew what he was doing: sitting there on the throne, reading.
Mom couldn’t bear the idea that he needed time away from the rest of us, so she went with this theme. “Steve, don’t sit too long. You’ll get hemorrhoids.”
“No, I won’t Mom. You don’t get hemorrhoids from sitting.”
This didn’t stop her so Steve had to step up his game. “Mom, I’m in medical school. I know what I’m talking about.”
“No, you don’t,” Mom said.
Four years later, Steve got hemorrhoids.
When I put this slide show together, I thought the images were blurry until I realized that I was looking at them through tears. But I console myself in the thought that, after all, I can’t say Mom always liked you best.
