Steve is Gone: The Continuum and Dull Sadness of Life is the Price for Joy

Steve Szkotak died today at 3:01 pm. I am doing my good work, keeping busy, meeting new people, as my pen-pal has died, slipping away . We have been sharing emails between us for a decade; it’s hard for me to look at email the same way now that Steve has left us.  Steve Szkotak has departed.  I miss him already.  Here is his full obituary, which reveals his interesting writing style and the range of jobs he had through his career. Steve was 65.

I have had two other friends leave me, like we always think, too young. Kent St. John was not yet 60,  Joe Obeng was in his mid-forties.  I often think about how old people are when the meet their fates, it’s so terribly random and hard.  God it’s hard. Nobody will really ever accept this, it’s just the cross we bear for the joy of being humans.  I think often about Kent and about Joe, both key members of our original team that made GoNOMAD. And now Steve joins them in that sad chamber of people you remember but will never see again.

I think by now, Steve is slipping free-fall, he had the drugs that make it a peaceful exit. He wasn’t anxious, he wasn’t full of fear. He slipped quietly, in his dignified way, to the beyond, that place where we all must go.  His wife was with him, supported by an old friend. Steve is gone. A good man leaves us.