StephMemorial: Dancing at the buffet

No disrespect to Kansas City, but we moved there from San Francisco. The comparisons were brutal.

SF is the land of 10,000 restaurants, some of which we could afford. Many of those were Chinese, Japanese, and Korean restaurants, and they were excellent. I don’t think we ever had an Asian meal in SF that wasn’t at least pretty good.

Then we moved to Kansas City, where there may have been great restaurants, but we couldn’t afford them. When we ate at any restaurant we could afford, we were often disappointed. I’ll eat almost anything, but Stephanie thought a meal should taste good if you're paying for it.

We found just one reasonably good Chinese restaurant in Kansas City, and it wasn’t in Kansas City proper. It was in Mall Land. That's what we called the indistinguishable suburbs on the Kansas side of the border, where there were chain stores at every intersection, strip malls between the intersections, and major shopping centers every mile or so.

In the parking lot of one of those malls, but in its own building, was a Chinese buffet that was affordable, casual, and generally tasty. We ate there several times, which made it our favorite KC restaurant, by default.

The food was good, but maybe we liked that restaurant more for the music. They played Asian pop over the muzak speakers in the dining area, and it was always catchy. Dick Clark on American Bandstand would say, “It's got a good beat and you can dance to it,” and we did, just once, when we were there for lunch and the place wasn’t too crowded. We didn’t dance for long, and afterward Steph told me, “You’re a terrible dancer,” and we laughed, and went back for another plateful of food.

We’d been married for five or seven years by then, but still every day with that lady was something new and something fun. It never stopped being something new and something fun. Well, except for the occasional hospitalizations.

We could’ve gone fifty years, I think, if she hadn’t up and died on me. That’s just a wisecrack, of course — Stephanie would chuckle if I said that, and in my mind’s ear I can hear her laughing. And on my mind’s feet we’re dancing again, by the back booth at that Chinese buffet in Mall Land.

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.