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Jan Andrew |
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I met
Steven through work, when he moved to San Francisco to work at aMedia. ------- This is a silly thing. Steven and I often wore similar things to work. Between us we must have owned at least eight dark grey t-shirts. So we'd often both be sitting at our computers, wearing identical grey t-shirts and jeans. Every couple days for variety, I wore a black sweater -- for which Steven had a near double. I wasn't trying to stand out, but I'd think, "What, are we supposed to be some sort of twins?" ------- Once, I was telling Steven about my roommate's new cat. Steven used to have a cat in Chicago. He said, "Oh I miss my cats. Cats are fun. Yeah, I'm going through kitty withdrawal." ------- I borrowed Steven's CD case once at work. That was fun. Looking through a music collection, you learn a little more about someone while finding new songs to play. I borrowed Yo La Tengo's "I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One" and must have listened to it everyday for the next two weeks. ------- Steven could get mad. I don't think I ever witnessed one of his tantrums directly, but I'd hear stories about his wrath. I don't think the anger came from nowhere, though. Steven knew when someone was doing something stupid, and he didn't want to waste time putting up with it. I remember him telling me in his measured voice -- the voice that sometimes felt like he was trying to stay calm, "Man, I really yelled at Max..." He sounded a little ashamed, but he was smiling about it, too, a little entertained and surprised by himself. ------- A meeting at work one day. Among the things on the agenda: Welcome Back to Steven and Cat, back from several months in the New York office. After the meeting, people are getting up to return to their desks, others are still in the meeting room talking, clarifying details. I remember, out of the corner of my eye, Cindy at one side of the table and Steven at the other. They are staring at one another. The kind of moment where no one else exists but the two of them, and it would be embarrassing for anyone else to look directly at the light. Maybe a couple weeks later, we're sitting around the office couch eating lunch, and Cindy asks if anyone wants to join her for a benefit run on the weekend. Two people are interested, and Steven is one of them. The next week, Steven and Cindy are acting a little strangely. Lunchtime: Steven gets up silently and goes out for a sandwich. A minute later, Cindy gets up: "I'm going to get lunch." They would leave separately and come back separately, but never ask if anyone else wanted to go with them. Very clever. Or, we all decide to eat lunch in the office, and Cindy and Steven always end up sitting next to each other. They seem to have become pretty good buddies. What they didn't know was, the night of that benefit run, in Japantown, I was riding home in a friend's car after dinner. As we rounded a corner, I saw them: Steven and Cindy, arms around each other, laughing, obviously having a jolly time. I have to admit I was a little envious at first, rolling my eyes (in my mind) while the two lovebirds kept their juicy secret romance hidden from everyone. But seeing them, it was obvious that Cindy and Steven made an unusually good match. It was at least a couple months later that our little dot-com lost all its funding and let the whole staff go. A group of us went out to eat our last lunch as co-workers. We sat in the grass with our sandwiches, and Steven says, "Hey, everybody, Cindy and I have an announcement to make." It took a lot of effort to wait until Steven had finished telling us that he and Cindy were a couple before I burst out and said, "I knew it! I saw you!" Cindy & Steven was the first great successful idea to come out of that dot-com. ------- I remember indoor rock-climbing with Steven at Mission Cliffs the day he started climbing again. Don't know if he was aware of how be built up a mini-legend around himself the way he talked - how he'd climbed for six years, how had been really 'cut' at his peak. How finally, one day two years ago, he'd fallen 60 feet, coming within yards from hitting the ground. How he hadn't climbed since. But today he was rusty and out-of-shape. I was secretly happy about that, because it meant he was temporarily a closer match to my level. ------- After the dot-com bust, Steven kept talking about this construction project he was going to work on. Work with his hands, outdoors. Hammer and nails. He seemed to love that. Simple work and building something real. ------- A few months later, Steven was talking about his new hobby, fishing. "I've been fishing a lot lately." He nods his head up and down, to affirm it, smiling. I never fished with him, but hearing the way he talked about it, you could tell he really loved it and it fed something in him. Relax the mind. Outdoors, lots of time, a very simple thing. ------- I remember what Steven said to me when after found out he had cancer.
He seemed to accept it, but he was not resigned to it. He said that
in a way he looked forward to the challenge and to the opportunity to
learn about himself and life. I felt like he saw that this is one of
the ultimate, fundamental things. If you've faced it, you've faced I'm still moved by that optimism and courage. I think part of that came from how he chose to grow from the difficult challenges he'd faced with illness in his family, and part of it also came from the strength he found in his love for Cindy. -Rick Elizaga
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