StephMemorial: No happy endings

If this was fiction, I'd write it with a happier ending, but there was no happy ending for Stephanie and I. We were pretty dang happy all along the way, though — almost to the end. That's what matters, I think.

If Stephanie had lived even a year longer, I think the ending would have been a bit happier. I'd be able to tell you that she'd battled the prosthetics company, and forced them to finally build her a leg she could walk with; that without the crippling pain of her misfit prosthetic she'd been able to resume practicing with her new improved leg, down the hall, then around the block, then around the park, and finally all around the city, until she'd left her wheelchair at home and walked everywhere. I'd be able to tell you that we'd gone dancing to celebrate her leggy liberation. Can't tell you any of that, though, since that's not at all what happened.

In real life, the bad guys won. The prosthetics-makers were paid thousands of dollars for building a leg Stephanie couldn't stand on, let alone walk on, and Steph spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair. The kidney crew that regularly subjected her to inhumane, degrading, and dangerous medical care were completely immune from criticism and consequence, and Stephanie ended up dead.

Of course, we all know that there are no happy endings in life. Any time there's a happy ending, even in novels or movies where some couple kisses and marries and lives happily ever after, that's only the moment where the author decided to stop the story. We close the book, but if the story continued then the people would grow old with aches and pains and one would die and the other would be devastated, or maybe one would develop kidney disease and never have a chance to grow old. Either way everyone's dead at the end. That's the human condition. There are no happy endings here on Earth.

If you're lucky, though — and Stephanie and I were very, very lucky — you can find some happiness before the end. That's what we did. All our happiness came before the story ended, but there's no denying that Stephanie and I were happy together, very happy, for a very long time. Yeah, that's what matters. She had less happiness than she deserved and I had more, but there were huge amounts of happiness for both of us. We had a pretty good run. And then we had an ending that was anything but happy. Same as everyone else.

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.