My Aunt died earlier this year and the following poem was read at her memorial. I found it comforting and hope that Steve's family and friend's will also find some comfort in this poem.

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And, just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her come, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:

"Here she comes!"

And that is dying."

- written by Henry Van Dyke

Mr. Irwin opened my eyes to the beauty of all creatures. I wish his family and friends peace.