By Nancy Laird

This summer, the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition lost a longtime member, supporter and friend in Stephen H. Laird of Price Hill. Steve’s wife Nancy is a UACC Core member as well as a former Urban Appalachian Council and current Santa Maria Community Service employee. Along with and aside from Nancy, Steve was a familiar face and a reliable behind-the-scenes volunteer at Urban Appalachian-related events and causes. In this post, Nancy shares a story that reflects his strength and determination to do good, even in a time of personal crisis.

As a longtime supporter of Urban Appalachian events and people, my husband Steve always had jokes to tell and opinions to share. He was loving and a pain at the same time. A great husband, father and “Poppie” to family, extended and chosen, Steve was one of the people Fred “Mister” Rogers would call a “helper.” He was always willing to help anyone in need, and he was always passionate about politics, human rights and animals. When he helped Urban Appalachian Council and Santa Maria with various projects over the past decades, he would often offer a joke that was sometimes off-color. We even came up with a safe word, “popcorn,” to let him know when he had or was about to step over a line.

But I want to share a story that shows a different side of Steve, one that few got to see or understand. For the past 16 years, Steve had cut the grass for five homes in our neighborhood—ours was in the middle. He didn’t accept any pay for this work; it was his way to provide a kind of “payback” by helping keep our neighborhood looking good. Last summer, he burned out his beloved John Deere mower, so we had to find a replacement. Sadly, it was not a John Deere, a fact he let me know on a regular basis. Still, he was determined to keep up the neighbors’ yards this year, and in February he began asking me, nagging me, to get his mower out of the shed. Though he was weak from his cancer, though we had a Hospice worker come to the house regularly to help him shower, Steve was clearly not ready to stop this act of neighborhood service. I held him off until the beginning of April, when it was clear that he was bound and determined to mount his mower once more. Mowing the lawns was Steve’s avocation. It was his passion.

One April morning at 6:02 am, Steve woke up with the sunrise and told me he was going to start cutting the lawns at 7 am. That would allow him enough time, he reasoned, to be finished with the job before his Hospice worker arrived to help him with showering and getting ready for the day. After all our years of marriage, I knew better than to say “no.” Instead, I asked how he would maneuver the riding mower across the multiple levels he would have to navigate. He told me he had a solid plan. I went back to sleep, and at 7 am, the sound of the lawnmower woke me up. It purred and hummed for just a couple of minutes, though, before stopping. I waited, nervous and concerned. Nothing. No more sound from outside.

As I got up to go check on him, my phone rang. Steve had pushed the “I’ve fallen but can’t get up” button he wore, and the service called me. They stayed on phone with me as I went to check on him, finally spotting him sitting against the fence next door, on the back of the lawnmower with his cane. Our neighbors helped me walk him to safety just as Jeff from Hospice arrived. I knew better than to offer my opinion. I left them to sort out the situation and went to work.

• 

I got home and immediately asked Steve how he was doing. “Well, I was having a pity party,” he answered. “You earned it,” I replied. It was true. He had every right to be depressed and angry. Then my joking, teasing husband surprised me. He told me he had decided that a “pity party” would do no good. He would just have to face the fact that he could no longer be the neighborhood grass cutter. BUT, he added, there were many other things he could still do around that house. He intended to do those things, and to do them well. I couldn’t hide my surprise and wonder. In that single day, he had taken a terrible situation, let it go and moved on. I was so proud of him, and I told him so. We celebrated over ice cream that night, and I carry that memory of his late-life evolution in my heart every day.