More than anything, my nephew Steve liked to fly. He would fly in his truck down the Interstate. He would fly on his skis down the mountains of Colorado. He would fly in his rented plane across the whole country. Steve would just bank and soar above the storm clouds.
When you are told that you have a brain tumor, you start waiting for the other shoe to fall. You know it’s going to make an awful sound, a piercing noise that you will never hear because you will be gone. Only your family and friends will hear the other shoe fall. So you try to prepare them for this other shoe. This is what Steve Mullane has been doing very subtly for the last 22 months.
Twenty-two months ago he got in the ring with cancer and he wasn’t expected to make it into the middle rounds. When he awoke after that initial surgery, his dad told him that the match was just beginning and that his opponent had an undefeated record.
“OK,” said Steve, “so what’s our fight plan?”
His wife, Brenda; his twin brother, Sean; and his dad were in his corner, and together they drew up the plan. The fight plan was the John Stoddard Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, the Duke Brain Tumor Center and Johns Hopkins Medical Center, the best brain tumor centers in the world. There were countless surgeries, chemotherapies, radiation treatments, advanced genetic therapies.
For nearly 12 months he seemed cancer-free. In the middle rounds he was scoring lots of points. The judges had him winning on all the cards.
Then he got walloped hard, and he was so badly hurt that the experts advised that he should throw in the towel. Instead, Steve came out swinging fiercely the next round and the round after that. It looked like a big upset was in the making, and then suddenly the fight was over, and Steve was gone. Steve would just bank and soar above the storm clouds.
A wise man once said that courage is not the absence of fear but a judgment that there is something more important than one’s fear. Every day for 22 months, Steve awoke beside Brenda and made that judgment. He realized from the beginning of this fight that we would need his courage to deal with this tragedy.
He wasn’t one to complain or moan about his fate. Instead he would crack jokes about his situation. He would make fun of the lopsided head that the surgeons had given him. He would have you touch the cavity in his head and then pretend like you had taken control of his arm or leg.
He would offer to share with you any of the 30 pills that he was forced to swallow each day. Even when he couldn’t do certain things for himself because of the creeping numbness in his arm, he would turn it into a big joke so that there would still be laughter in the hearts of his family and friends.
It seemed that Steve always managed to schedule his surgeries so that he would be coming through Chicago when the Cubs were at Wrigley Field or the Bears were at Soldier Field. I would meet him at the ballpark or nearby saloon.
He would greet me with a big smile and say, “Uncle Jim, we’re going to win today!” Steve would just bank and soar above the storm clouds.
On April 8, Steve Mullane flew into our world and on April 8, 36 years later, he flew out. The other shoe has fallen. It was an awful sound. But Steve has prepared us well. He has taught us all about love and courage. We will always miss him. We will always love him. He will never be forgotten, and we will remember that Steve would just bank and soar above the storm clouds.
