StephMemorial: Many happy returns

Stephanie and I were just two of the thousands of hands a candidate shakes. It was 2007, Satya Rhodes-Conway was running for Madison's Board of Alders, and she was pressing flesh at the Eastside Farmer's Market, where we were buying rhubarbs and green peppers. We spoke with her very briefly, just a few sentences, but we liked her, we voted for her, and she won.

When she was our alder, her centerpiece issues were improving pedestrian safety (important to Steph and I, as we live just a few blocks from Washington Avenue, which is Madison's "Main Street"), improving public transit (I'm a huge believer in buses), and affordable housing and economic development issues in our district. We wrote her a letter once — I don't remember what we were on about —and Satya replied with an intelligent note that clearly wasn't a form letter.

She was always Satya, by the way. Steph called her Satya, never by her last name. For a long time I'm not sure I knew Satya's last name.

We spoke with her a few other times, once at a political rally and once when we just happened to be taking a walk in Warner Park, and so was Satya. Always she was personable, always her politics made sense and matched ours, and when her name was in the news, it was always for proposing something or taking a stand that we agreed with. Steph would wave the newspaper in the air, or point at some article on-line, and she'd say, "Satya!" Which doubtless sounds silly (because it was silly), but Stephanie & I often communicated "Happiness!" by semi-shouting a simple word or phrase very happily. Satya was our favorite local politician, so we sometimes semi-shouted, "Satya!"

After a few terms in office, though, Satya decided not to seek re-election in 2013. She went to work for a local think tank and policy advocates' group called the Center on Wisconsin Studies — yeah, COWS. We were sad to see her go, and obviously, we knew that would be the end of Satya's political career.

Except, weirdly, it wasn't. After five years out of the headlines, Satya announced last summer that she was running for Mayor of Madison. Stephanie was delighted when she told me, and it was good news, yeah, but I was pretty sure that she didn't have a chance. You can't disappear from the news for that long and then come back and expect to win the Mayor's job.

Even more impossible, she was running against Paul Soglin, Madison's Mayor-for-Life. Soglin was first elected Mayor in 1973, and while four other people have been Mayor between then and now, whenever Soglin decided he wanted to be Mayor again, he was unbeatable. He'd been Mayor for 22 of the last 45 years.

The election was yesterday. I voted for Satya. She won in a landslide. Politics isn't allowed on this website, unless it's Stephanie's politics, and today it is. Steph would be smiling big this morning, and she'd be saying, almost shouting, "Mayor Satya! Mayor Satya!"

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.