Celebration Success and In the Blender

As you well may have guessed, my life has been thrown into a blender and turned onto high!  Things are starting to settle into medium speed now that a week has passed since Steve's life celebration. 

The Celebration was wonderful and sad and exhausting, to say the least.  I'm so pleased with how it turned out.  Steve would have been very impressed and moved by the generous gifts of your time and talents; I know I am.   All agree it was a huge success.  

 

This event would not have been the big success that it was without the work of many talented and willing friends!

Thank you Amy Neuman for spearheading the event: performing most of the organizing and coordination, creating and excuting the RSVPs, word cloud, print outs of wishes and eulogy,  memorial cards, and table center pieces.  Your time and talent were a loving tribute to Steve and are greatly appreciated. 

Thank you VeAnne Virgin for bringing the centerpieces, tying the fish hooks on, and creating the music sound track.  Spot on! 

Thank you Elaine Ableidinger for the beautiful flower arrangements.  They were the perfect touch.

Thank you Deb Mrazek for the AV equipment, framed commitment instructions and tea lights and setting up the memorabilia table and slide show with Sam Lucente. Everyone enjoyed these additions. 

Thank you to each of you who helped with the set up and take down.  You all made it easy and enjoyable.  

As for how I'm doing, I'm staying busy and involved.  My whole family came and I so enjoyed that.  We haven't all been together for 5 years.  Seeing each of you, or hearing from you all was really special and memorable.  Also, I am taking advantage of the bereavement services offered by the hospice organization and I must say, so far it's been really helpful. 

Mostly, all of the support I've received has really affected me more than I can explain. I'm doing OK and grieving and then doing OK again.  It's like waves.  I'm learning to flow with them.  

Invitation for Oct 17th Celebration

The rhythm of life right now for myself and Steve's friends and family is busy.  We are preparing for the Celebration of Steve to be held on Saturday, October 17 in Camas, WA.  

This is an open event to share stories and to honor Steve.  So, if you'd like to come join us, RSVP to Amy at neumanpdx@gmail.com by October 10th.  For more details, please read the blog post dated Oct 5, "Celebration of Steve's Life".  

I'm doing OK and just can't say enough thank you's to all of Steve's and my friends who are helping with the planning.  

Receiving your cards and emails has given me such a nice warm feeling, a sense of connection and sharing that is healing.  Thank you so very much.  

Celebration of Steve's Life

Our friends and family have planned a celebration of Steve’s life. It will be held on Saturday, October 17th in Camas, Washington.  For those of you that wish to attend please r.s.v.p by Friday, Oct 9th to Amy Neuman at neumanpdx@gmail.com or 503-927-2587 and she will send you an invitation.  

The celebration will provide an open opportunity for people to share their thoughts and stories.  If you are not able to attend but wish to contribute, we will create a word cloud in remembrance of Steve.  Please send Amy one word that exemplifies Steve’s wonderful character or what he meant to you. Also, any memorable stories you have but don't wish to share yourself during the celebration, please send them along for integration into a eulogy.  We are also collecting photos for a slide show.  You can either upload them here https://www.yogile.com/steve or you can email them directly to Amy (neumanpdx@gmail.com)

The initial chaos and waterfall are behind me now.  Ahead is the period of rebuilding which will happen concurrently and following period of grief and loss of someone who was at the very core of my life.

I sincerely appreciate all the love, concern and help that I've received during this life changing event.  How can I tell you how important it's been!  

Dixie

Next steps and planning.

Family and friends are gathering around me, holding me physically and emtionally and even doing my dishes and housecleaning! I'm grateful for that.  I just want to post a short blog to say that we are planning to have a life celebration for Steve.  The date, time and place are being worked out.  Our target date is October 17 near Camas, Washington but this is far from final.  However, as Steve would have done, we are sharing as the ideas are in the works.  More later.  

Journey to Peace

Peace has arrived for Steve. 

He completed his journey at 3:20 today in the arms of family. 

Family and Friends Time

Steve's brothers have arrived safe and sound after their non-stop drive from Chicago in a rental truck. Wow!  Now all of us are here with Steve.  He's peaceful and quiet.  I've been sharing all of your messages and photos with him which are coming from around the world: Tailand, China, Peru, Norway, Ireland to name a few from far away.   We are so grateful for your heartfelt expressions of affection and respect for Steve.  What a wonderful testament to his life that he has live so well.  

Vigil

Dear friends and family.  Thank you all for your wonderful notes, emails, texts and visits.  They mean so much to me and Steve.  I read them all to him as I sit next to him, at home, peacefully and with a full range of feelings.  Today, he's sleeping more, opens his eyes, smiles when I kiss him.  He says he's not hurting and seems comfortable.  Gregg and Kevin should arrive later today and we are looking forward to seeing them here safe and sound after their drive from Chicago.  It's a long story, but they had to drive here.  

We think he will be with us for the better part of this week, but of course, we are only guessing.  We may know more when the hospice nurse comes today.  If things change, I'll post an update.  Also, if you want immediate access to the posts, you need to go to the website and not wait for the automatic distribution which occurs about midnight each day. 

Thanks again everyone.