StephMemorial: Stephanie's grandmother

Today I heard from Jack (Steph's father), that his mother (Stephanie's grandmother) passed away a few days ago. Stephanie loved her a lot, and if Steph was here today she'd be crying, and we'd be driving to the wake. But the wake is in Iowa, a long and snowy drive, and I wouldn't belong there without Stephanie, so I'll just write a few words about Ella Webb.

I didn't know her well, but I knew her well enough to be impressed. We'd met and visited with her perhaps half a dozen times, and there was definitely some Stephanie in her grandmother, or some Grandma in Stephanie. Jack told me that his mother had been a quiet woman until her husband died in the 1990s, but after that she became more outspoken. I didn't meet her until 1997, so she was always the outspoken Grandma Webb to me. She was nice, she was smart, she didn't mince words, and she didn't suffer fools at great length.

She was the Grandma that Steph visited as a kid, for Christmas, for Thanksgiving. She was the matriarch of the family. She kept a very detailed scrapbook of Stephanie's childhood, from which I've scanned many photos and learned some details of Stephanie's youth that I'd never known.

When I first met Steph's grandmother, she made me feel welcomed to the family, immediately and enthusiastically. Whenever we saw her, she always wanted to spend a little more time with Stephanie – and to a lesser extent with me, but mostly (and understandably) with Stephanie. I remember that she was sharp-witted and very much there, right up through her 90s, when we last saw her. I'm 60 and I can already feel myself fading through the years, so I envy that. She was 100 when she died.

When she was lightening her load many years ago, Steph's grandma gave us her dining room table. It's probably the table where Stephanie's father ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner when he was a kid. That table moved with us to San Francisco, to Kansas City, and now it's in the main room of our apartment in Madison. We usually ate at the table, but we called it "the desk," since that's where Steph and I kept our laptops plugged in. I'm typing these words at that table, so thank you again, Grandma Webb.

My clearest memory of her was when Stephanie and I put on our best clothes and drove a few hundred miles to attend a cousin's wedding in Iowa – a cousin's gay wedding, it must be said, and this was back when that was a very new and still quite controversial idea. Enormous societal changes can be difficult, especially for older folks. My niece got gay-married a few years ago, and my own mother refused to attend. But Stephanie's grandmother was there for the occasion, and she was 100% supportive.

During the dinner afterwards, while Stephanie was talking with someone else, we had a ten-minute conversation, one-on-one, just me and Stephanie's grandmother. "So, they're lesbians," she said. "I don't approve, but they didn't ask for my approval and they don't need it. She's my granddaughter and I love her and I'm glad she's happy. That's all that matters." Old and wise don't necessarily go together, but in Steph's grandmother they surely did.

Welcome to StephMemorial

Stephanie Webb was my wife, my closest friend, my angel. We were together from 1997 until 2018, and for all that time we were head-over-heels in love. She was the best thing that ever happened to me, or ever will.

Who was Stephanie? She was complicated, and sometimes difficult. She was brilliant but insecure, eloquent but introverted, strong-willed but soft-spoken, tough as titanium but always vulnerable, a dreamer but utterly down-to-earth. Sometimes she was deeper than the Marianas Trench, and other times so silly you'd be giggling for hours.

She wasn't famous, and she was never arrested or made headlines. She worked ordinary office jobs, but after hours and on the weekend she was adventurous — oh, the places we've been (though always on a budget). She developed major medical problems toward the end, but other than a few dark days she generally kept an optimistic outlook. She was 26 when we met, and 48 when she died.

This domain was created to post her obituary on-line, so old friends who'd been out of touch could Google her name and know that she'd passed away. After writing the obituary, though, there was more to be said. And then, more still.

I don't want to forget any of the moments we spent together, the things we did, or the promises we made, kept, and broke — but I'm old and sometimes forgetful, and it's not likely that my memory will improve with age. So I'm writing it. Almost all of it. I reckon that's going to take the rest of my life.

I can't tell you everything about Stephanie, of course. As well as I knew her, there must be many stories she never told me, and many stories she told me that I've forgotten. There are also, of course, some stories that I'm not going to share.

She didn't often speak about her childhood, her adolescence, her first years of adulthood, and her answers when I asked were usually brief. She got the recipe for Stephanie exactly right, that's for sure — but I wasn't there while she was creating herself, day by day and bit by bit, so my focus will be on the time we had together.

It was delightful and never dull spending those years with her, and it's my hope to convey some small smidgen of the joy of Stephanie. Of course, her spirit can't be captured and posted on-line, and there's no doubt that I'm going to fail. But I am going to try.

I am under no illusion that this site will be popular. That's not the point. When I write about Stephanie it's like spending more time with her, or re-spending old times with her, and that's the best thing left in my life.

My name is Doug, and I'm (still and always) Stephanie's husband. If you knew her, or have something to say about the website, or if you've spotted a typo, you can reach me via the form below.