"Steve was right......and he saw his role in the Universe to let you know he was right. It was one of his most infuriating traits. But it was also one of the most important ones for us.
There are a lot of people in this world who try to convince you they are right. They try to define the world for you, they try to get you to agree with them - mainly because they want something from you. That was NOT Steve.
Steve told you he was right, not because he wanted something from you, but because he wanted you to see something in yourself. He challenged your assumptions about the world, about people, about things. He wanted you to see that there was something different than what you thought. He wanted you to see something better in the world, in your view of it, something better in yourself.
Steve was right. Oh, you may have disagreed with his logic. You may have disagreed with the details of whatever argument he pushed you into And at the time you may have even angrily defended your point of view. But when you walked away, when you calmed down, you saw it. You saw something new.
You saw a different view of the world.
While most of us were tilting at windmills, Steve was tilting the Universe.
Steve was right. He was right to make us think in a different way. He was right to make us all see something new about ourselves, something exciting about life. It's a gift that is rare and valuable. It's a gift of those who get us to move beyond our assumptions, who get us to take off the dark glasses that block the view of a new horizon. It's the gift of those who get us to move beyond the things that hold us back. It's the gift of great teachers.
Steve was right. And if you listened to him, you found yourself doing something you would never believed you could do. Sometimes it was plum loco crazy. Sometimes it got you in so much trouble your pants would catch fire. And it usually ended up with a raging headache.
Bit it was also more fun than you thought you could ever, ever have.
Steve was right. And he persevered in being right. His being right was a force of nature, and he'd badger you with it. He kept at you until you saw he was right. Like the way he constantly tinkered with his motorcycle, persevering at showing even Harley Davidson he was right.
He persevered in his view of the world. And in that perseverance, he taught us something else. He taught us that being right doesn't mean things will be easy. It doesn't mean that if you're rolling along on a clear smooth road, that something won't slam into you out of the blue and knock you off your ride, kick you into the worst thing that could ever happen to you. He didn't mean that the Universe wouldn't try to kill you when you came around the next curve.
But it did mean that you persevered. That you held on, that whatever the Cosmos threw at you, you could make it. That no matter how long it took, you could get back up, get back on the bike, and keep going. Steve was right. He showed us how to look beyond ourselves. He showed us how to persevere.
There is a small tribe in Africa, who lives in a small village on a broad Savannah nestled in a valley near rolling hills covered with long grasses. They spend their lives tending their cows, planting and harvesting their crops, raising their children.
When one of their tribe passes away, the entire village gathers, and begins to walk slowly around the person's hut, singing a quiet song of mourning. They seal the door of the hut so that nobody can see inside - so that they don't look at things, but only focus on the memories they have of their friend and neighbor.
After a time the mourning song stops. It's then that the tribe begins to dance and sing as loud as they can. It's a song of joy and happiness, animated and full of life, echoing through the air and around the countryside. It's then that they throw open the door of the hut, lift their friend on their shoulders and carry him high into the hills that look out over long grasses, the valley, the village and everybody in it.
And it's there that they place their dear friend, on a high platform, open to the sun and the sky, looking down on the world and the life that flows there.
And then they all peacefully walk back down the hill, back to their lives, back to a new day.
The anthropologist who first witnessed this tribal ritual, said he sat for hours trying to figure out how he would write it out in his journal. After a long time he wrote just two lines: "how kind of them. How kind of them all."
Today we are here as members of Steve's tribe. We will mourn for him for a while. But soon we will remember what a gift he was to us. That's when we will begin to sing and dance. That's when we will begin to celebrate the life that was his, and all that he brought to us.
That's when we will carry him up, high into a place where we know he can see us. a place where when we look up, we will remember Steve, and wave to him, and let him know that we're doing just fine. And that we thank him for being right all along, and for persevering to show us something better in our world, our lives, and ourselves."
Steve on our last trip to visit Michael and Nancy. He was very sick, but he persevered and had a good time. Steve WAS Right!.
I could not remember the sense of what Michael wrote, the day is a blur of unreality for me. I asked Michael to send me a copy. Thank you Michael!
Day 109 of 365.
Persevere ........K
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