Support The Bess Family after Steve's passing

TLDR:

Steve died suddenly on New Year’s Eve. His wife Karen is now left to care for their four children (15, 12, 10, 6). The oldest has a condition called 1p36 Deletion Syndrome, which causes significant special needs, and therapies are expensive. Plus, the family needs to maintain a sense of normalcy right now Donating will help them, and you’ll feel warm and fuzzy about it. Click the button and give what you can.

----

What can I say about my cousin, the man known affectionately as Piglet Wonder by his little sis Lauran, Sherman by his big bro Jordan, and Steve-O by his BFF Matt?

Well, Steve loved being in the great outdoors – camping, fishing, quadding (that’s riding around on a 4-wheeler for you city folk) – he did it all. Not always well, but he tried.

That was the thing about Steve. He gave 100% to everything he did. And he shared that enthusiasm with others. I mean, seriously shared…we heard about every. Single. Peleton. Ride. All of them.

But above all, he gave himself to his family.

In high school, his sister wanted to try out for the soccer team, but she was going to have to run two miles. – she had never even run to catch the bus.

Without hesitation, Steve said, “Let’s do this. Let’s run one block.”

So they did.

The next day Steve said, “Let’s run two blocks.”

So they did.

And eventually, they ran two miles. Lauran made soccer team, though she was never very good. She’s a great gal but not the most coordinated lady.

Lauran quickly traded soccer for cross country and continued running, completing the Boston Marathon several years later. It all started with Steve saying, “Let’s do this.”

Steve’s world was his wife Karen and their children Aiden, Dylan, Colin, and Addison (“princess” to her daddy – the youngest and the only girl). Married for 21 years, they met in a really, really lame New Hampshire bar that probably played, “Closing Time” at the end of every night because that’s what bars did in the late 90’s. A few years later they moved to Warwick, NY for Steve’s job.

Steve worked in medical device sales, and he was really good at it.

What made him so good at it?

Steve was a presence. He could own any room he walked into. And he could talk to anyone…for hours. I’m not gonna lie, sometimes in my head I was like, “Do you ever shut up?”

No, he didn’t.

But that’s because he was so passionate. He gobbled up medical information because he wanted to help people. He wanted a cure for MS, a disease he watched weaken his father. He wanted those who used the equipment he sold to maximize the benefits. And more than anything, he wanted to help his eldest son, who was born with 1p36 deletion syndrome.

Now 15, when Aiden was first born there was very little information about this rare syndrome, and Steven and Karen didn’t know what to expect or how long their son would live. But they threw themselves into the 1p36 community, building awareness and making fundraising for research a priority.

Steve will be (mostly) fondly remembered. I have him yelling “Wassup!” a million times a day for like a full year burned into my brain 20-something years later and I’m not quite sure where to file that one.

Regardless, you didn’t walk away from Steve forgetting the encounter.

If you knew him, you’ll think of how deeply he cared and how much he gave to others. And if you didn’t know him, I’m sorry you missed out.

Karen, Aiden, Dylan, Colin, and Addison can use all the support they can get right now. It’s impossibly hard to consider a future without Steve, but that is the new reality their family faces. Please click the “Donate” button and give generously because Steve was so generous of himself.

P.S. To satisfy your morbid curiosity, it was a brain aneurysm.