Tag Archives: livingforsteve

Faith

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Faith is an amazing thing. Though, at times it can seem very confusing and even mysterious. When faced with times of great tragedy, people’s faith can change in very drastic ways. It can be strengthened, or it could even be shattered.

In the case of the tragedy of my brother’s death, I can confidently say that my faith has been strengthened. I have always considered myself to have a strong faith, so when this happened, it was natural for me to turn to God. Though, I admit, I’ve gotten a little more “real” in the way I talk to him. But I still praise him, sing at mass, and thank Him. He has blessed me in so many ways after all, including blessing me with an amazing brother, however unfairly short I feel the time I had with him was.

My faith was also strengthened by the people around me. First and foremost, Tommy has been my rock and is there for me whenever I get sad or angry, and we both have embraced this new level of faith together. We had SO many friends and family reaching out to us and just being there for us around the funeral week. My sister Kellie mentioned at one point, it’s really hard to completely fall down and lose it when you have so many people holding you up. A good friend of the family posted a picture of Steve on Facebook with the quote, “Trust in God with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” That really struck me and put a lot of things into perspective for me. Faith is all about trust after all.

I know a lot of people beyond my family have been very affected by my brother’s sudden death, and that some of their faiths have been challenged. What may have been a somewhat easy task to have faith, you may now struggle with it because you just cannot comprehend why something like this would happen. It just doesn’t make sense. And don’t think I’m trying to show off saying my faith is stronger, it has been a struggle for me too. I have thought and asked all the same questions, and had all the same anger.

I wanted to talk about this today because it is the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. He is more commonly known as doubting Thomas, for his infamous encounter with Jesus after he rose from the dead, as told here in the Gospel of John:

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

This is what makes faith such a beautiful thing. Will we ever understand why this happened to our Stephen in this lifetime? No. And I believe we are just not meant to. Will we see Jesus in this lifetime before reaching heaven? Probably not. But that is the mystery of faith. We are not meant to understand it all. We lean on and trust in God, and live for Jesus while we are here. We do what we can while we are here with what we have so that we may one day enter the kingdom of heaven. Faith wouldn’t be so difficult and challenging if the reward wasn’t so amazing.

We will run and not grow weary

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

Before Voldemort, this line of the Serenity prayer was pretty doable for me. If things don’t go our way, yes, initially, we are upset, angry, and or stressed. But if we take deep breath, put our emotions aside, and think about the issue, we can usually deal with the fact that “sh*t happens” and we figure out a way to adjust. Voldemort has made this acceptance, and the attainment of the serenity we seek, for me, near impossible, and almost unimaginable. I will probably spend my entire lifetime trying to accept the early death of my baby brother. I’m not going to sugar coat it, this fact haunts me every single day, several times a day, or more. I know so many of you who read this are going through some version of this. I pray daily for all of you, as I know you do for me.

I don’t want to get any darker than that (yet), but in order to talk about the next part, I needed to establish the dark, to introduce the light.

The next line then asks God to grant us “the courage to change the things we can.” I believe this is probably the most important line in the prayer. Why? We can pray all we want and ask for this that and the other thing. But this part, we actually have control over. YOU can be the change. If you have the courage, what could you accomplish in this lifetime?

I have always tried to live my life by “changing the things I can.” I’ve been successful in some areas and I’ve fallen short on others. Namely, fitness. I know it’s important, and sporadically, I do workout, or have a spell where I’m going to the gym regularly. But mostly, I’ve been lazy and never stuck with any kind of regime.

Stevie was very fit. A Jones Beach Lifeguard, he took pride in staying fit, agile and healthy. It was one (of many) ways he excelled in this life as “changing the things he could.” He was grateful to God for the life he was given, and treated his body like a temple, with the utmost respect. He regularly encouraged us to get up and out and walking or running or anything to keep us all healthy. (That’s Steve for you, isn’t it? Trying to take care of us all!)

Now in our post-voldemort world, a lot of what I do to “change the things I can,” I do for Steve. We all do. #LivingforSteve is scattered all over Facebook and Instagram now. You’ve probably also heard us say “Keep moving forward.” Walt Disney was the one who said it, and it has always had meaning for us, but now has become our positive mantra in dealing with this “new normal.”

So, after a very long-winded introduction, what am I doing to honor Steve and “change” my life?

I’m running. Note that I cannot yet call myself a “runner”, but yes I am running! Now to clarify, before I started training, I could barely run a full mile without stopping. In the past 6 weeks, I have been consistently running 3 times a week. I run with our friend, Pammie, I run with my husband, Tommy, my new sister, Nadia, and now even my sister, Kellie has started running! I ran my 1st 5k on June 8th for Thomas Reynolds, on the 4th of July we are running 4 miles and in October, I am signed up for a 10 miler! I am so nervous but so excited to put in the work for this.

I made it all sound easy in that paragraph, but it’s not. Running is hard. the more I do it, the more I realize that running is always going to be hard, and it doesn’t really get easier. My body just gets stronger and better able to deal with it. (Hmmm this sounds a lot like dealing with Voldemort) Sometimes, it’s enjoyable and we talk about Steve and we cheer ourselves on saying “this is for you, Stevie!” Other times, like I’ve said, it’s just hard, and it hurts and it sucks. Usually toward the end. But you know what I think about? Nothing will every be harder, or hurt more in this life than what I’ve had to deal with the last 2+ months. This [run] is nothing. Yea it sucks, but then its over in what? 5 min? 10 more min? And then you’re done, and you can shower and enjoy those endorphins you earned.

So no matter how it goes that day, it’s all for Steve. To make him proud, and to run every mile that he no longer can. Maybe to one day run the Rutgers Half Marathon that he was about to race in, but never made it to. I am already so proud of me (of all of us) for how far we’ve come with this personal goal we’ve set for ourselves to quite literally follow in Steve’s athletic footsteps. No matter how hard, we keep moving forward. 

Thanks for reading. I hope you all can find the courage to make changes to your own life that brings you joy, comfort, or even serenity. I’ll close with one of my favorite church hymns, that so reminds me of our Steve that it brings me to tears whenever I hear it.

We will run and not grow weary,

for our God will be our strength,

and we will fly like the eagle,

we will rise again.