I lost a friend last week… A good man was taken from us too early

I knew Steve from a business leadership program that we participated in back in the ’90s; as part of that program, we learned many practices to help us be more effective leaders in business and in life, including the benefits of meditation and Go, the 2500-year-old Chinese strategy board game.

Go was invented in order to train young Chinese generals good battle strategy skills without having to lose 100s or 1000s of warriors to do so; the idea was not a “winner-take-all” type game like checkers or chess, but to take just 51% of the available real estate on the board. A parallel concept that the program taught us was that we could see our Self in our style of game-play: were we too greedy and wanting to “have it all” while leaving ourselves open to attack, were we too conservative and protective so we would lose by not taking enough territory? Winning the game wasn’t the only point; we were looking to extrapolate our insights into winning and losing in life.

It was in the post-game conversations that I initially got to know Steve; he was fairly quiet and soft spoken, so I didn’t hear that much from him in the bigger room, but much more so 1:1. As I was looking through some old email correspondence with him, I was reminded that we got to know each other well enough over the years to start scheming a company together with another person from the program where we all met; we never did follow-through on our idea of a user-centric media business (think Spotify for all media types back in 2005), but it did show the depth of relationship that we developed.

I continued to spend more time with him when someone formed a Go group for serious local players. Over the years, the group evolved from playing the game into a men’s discussion group whose conversations were focused on successful strategies to “live a good life” (however we defined it); we are now focused on what we call the “third third” of our lives. Over years of these twice-quarterly meetings, I really got to know who Steve was and what made him tick:

• He adored his dear wife of over 40 years; I worked with DeDe for a few years at PwC and afterwards, so I could see why. In addition to running the family together, they had also run a business together for years and they complimented each other in both domains.
• Beyond the love of his life, he was a real family man… He deeply loved his children and grandchildren; you can just see his happiness in each of the beautiful pictures he proudly posted with the family (did he ever not wear a Hawaiian shirt?). He celebrated their wins and successes and was compassionate and empathetic with each of their setbacks, but through it all, he remained supportive of and joyful for each of them.
• He was fiercely proud of the accomplishments of the teams that he had built over the years. Again and again this formed the central core of his business life and these were much more valuable than any accolades or rewards given to him personally.

Steve had been dealing with intestinal cancer for the last 9 months or so and, since it was “non-specific” (i.e. the doctors couldn’t pinpoint it and target it effectively), he was on and off chemo as they tried to reverse things without having it be a constant drip. He had some good weeks and others that were not so good. Earlier this year, we set up a bridge line so he could attend the men’s group when he was up to it and he made a few of them. When I saw him last, he said that he might have 9 days, 9 weeks, 9 months or 90 years, they just didn’t know.

When I asked him if he wanted to join the bridge for our mid-May men’s group meeting, he let me know later that evening that “it was a rough day”. I have been traveling a bunch over the last 3 months, so I set up a time to see him when I got back in town this week; regrettably, we weren’t able to keep that appointment yesterday.

We were just back east with the family (including my mom, daughter, her boyfriend and large parts of my wife’s side) for the long weekend when I heard the surprising news from another colleague on Memorial Day. While I was extremely sad to get this news, I think that I was right where he would have wanted me to be, with the family, to learn about his fate. Today, if the weekend traffic blocks the main highway to the beach, I will take a more leisurely route down the back roads, since I am sure that would be his preference.

It was really nice to get to know this gentle soul at a deeper level over the years. Steve, I thank you for your contributions to us and my life: the conversations, the ideas, the humor and, most of all, the fabulous example that you were to everyone you touched. Rest in peace and look down kindly on us; I’ll miss you, my friend.