Happy birthday, you gregarious, wonderful, beautiful, frustrating, hilarious, fantastic, fascinating, unique and incredibly absent man.
Your birth touched many, many lives. Your life was so full, you lived several lifetimes in your short life, more than most people live.
Today, I want to celebrate that life but all I can do is think about your death. All I can think is that you’re gone and that full, lively, wonderful, topsy-turvy life of yours is history. There is no more life for you. It’s still hard to process. It still feels weird, like it’s not real. Death is so weird, it’s just so weird.
Birthdays are a lovely thing, though. They celebrate something so incredible as the miracle of an individual’s birth and how much that birth has had an effect on this world. Even after they’re gone. You know why? Because our lives are more than our existence. Our lives are marks on this world that extend beyond our presence and our bodies. Our lives are experiences, the impressions we left, energy left behind and memories.
Go to any popular attraction and you feel the buzz of all the people there but you also feel the buzz of all who have been there before. It matters. They matter. You matter, Steven. You always will.
Today, I celebrate the mark you made, the presence you had and the buzz that all who knew you still feel. You are remembered, Steven. You are loved and cherished. We still feel you. You are remembered.
Happy Birthday.
