I'm so sad at the death of my treasured uncle Steve. Especially since I ran into him at Meijers ten days earlier and we had a brief discussion. I told him I was coming to see him and he replied, "Well, you better!" When I went over to his house on the following Wednesday afternoon, no one was home. I thought, well I'll come back in a few days. Alas. It was not to be.
Fortunately, I had so many wonderful interactions with Uncle Steve in my life. Our trip to China, which my sister Diane so smartly arranged, knowing from her many contacts with Chinese leaders and people, that he would be so welcome for his World War II experience maintaining the Burma Road against the Japanese. At several social and political gatherings, Steve's story became known and preceded him as we travelled from place to place.
It was a history lesson for me as I saw how the Chinese people expressed such gratitude, even reverence, for his contributions to holding off the Japanese. Uncle Steve enjoyed the recognition, as he was invariably at his best at the center of attention. However, always the realist, he confided to me after a few of these tributes, that "if this trip continues much longer I will be convinced that I was solely responsible for winning the war in the Pacific."
That was the thing about Uncle Steve. He loved laughter and loved a good story, and told many of them. He was always so good to me, and seeing him after a long separation was like we'd been together only the day before.
I loved talking to him about old cars that he had worked on, and we had one unusual connection because as a very young man he worked for the Siemens family, who had the repair garage in Muskegon in the 1940s, and who were connected with the DeMuros by marriage from Italy (or some similar way I can't remember; the German "Siemens" reference is a strange artifact of social history since that family was apparently the Simonelli family. but you know about Ellis island) and he told me all these wonderful stories about members of the Italian community on Jackson Hill in Muskegon, who were, of course, my father's family's relatives.
We had some wonderful long talks on that Chinese trip, and I remember how much he loved Pauline and how proud he was of Pam and Sheila and their families.
He was so much fun, my Uncle Steve. I will miss him always.
