forstevenwithlove.com

Love you babe!

There was something remarkable about the way his mind worked,
like he could look at a broken thing
and immediately understand how it was supposed to work.

Give him an engine that wouldn’t start,
a part that didn’t fit,
a problem nobody else could figure out,
and somehow, he would find the answer.

Babe wasn’t the kind of man
who waited around for someone else to explain it.
He was a get-up-and-go,
figure-it-out,
roll-up-his-sleeves kind of man.

If he put his mind to something,
you could pretty much count on him
to understand it,
solve it,
and get it done.

He had confidence in his hands
because he had confidence in his mind.
He could look at a machine,
listen to the way it sounded,
study the way it moved,
and know where the problem was.

And gosh, he would literally try to explain,
piece by piece,
what was going on with the engine.

And boy, he would go into detail.

He would explain every part,
every sound,
every little thing he believed was happening,
until sometimes I would hear Charlie Brown
because it was all so intense.

He was so smart
in a way that I was not.

But he never made me feel bad about that.
He simply understood things naturally.
He could take something apart,
see how every piece worked together,
and put it back in a way
that made perfect sense to him.

Sometimes he proved everybody wrong
simply by seeing what they had missed.

And those hands.

Lord, those hands.

They were almost always black with grease,
stained with oil,
and covered in the evidence of whatever
he had been working on that day.

He could wash them a hundred times,
scrub until he thought they were clean,
and somehow there would still be grease
somewhere on those fingers.

And heaven forbid he tried to eat.

I’d look at him like,
Babe, how are your hands still dirty?

And somehow, he’d be touching the walls,
leaving marks where he’d walked,
like the whole house was part of his workshop.

He drove me absolutely crazy.

But those dirty hands were proof
that his mind was always working.
He was always studying something,
testing something,
building something,
or figuring out why something wasn’t working.

He never needed a manual
to tell him what he already understood.
He had a way of looking at a problem
and seeing past the confusion
to the answer underneath.

I used to call him my grease monkey.
It was one of those little things
that belonged to us,
one of those names wrapped in everyday love
that never seemed important enough
to remember forever.

But now, when I think of it,
I think of how perfectly it suited him.

He was always learning.
Always observing.
Always finding a better way.

Now I’d give anything
to see those blackened hands again.
To watch him wipe them on a rag
that was never quite clean.
To hear him explain what was wrong
when the rest of us couldn’t even see the problem.

And it wasn’t just engines.
It wasn’t just cars or tools
or things with bolts and moving parts.

That man could sit at a table
with a math problem in front of him
and work through it until it made sense.

He had a mind that kept going.
He didn’t give up because something was difficult.
Difficulty only made him more determined
to understand it.

He could look at numbers,
patterns,
pieces,
and possibilities,
and somehow make them come together.

He was smart in a way
that showed itself in everyday life.
Not because he needed people to praise him,
but because he genuinely understood things.

He noticed details other people missed.
He remembered how things worked.
He could explain complicated problems
in a way that made them seem simple.

Though sometimes, when he got really deep into explaining,
I would hear nothing but Charlie Brown.

And if he didn’t know the answer,
he would keep working until he found it.

That’s what I want people to remember.

Not just the mechanic.
Not just the man who could bring an engine back to life.
But the man whose mind was always moving.

The father sitting at the table,
helping his kids work through a problem,
showing them that the answer was there
if they took their time,
looked closely,
and kept thinking.

He didn’t just fix things for people.
He taught them how to understand things.

He had a gift for figuring things out.

He could see how separate pieces belonged together.
He could recognize what was missing.
He could find the source of a problem
when everyone else was looking in the wrong place.

He had the kind of intelligence
that lived in both his head and his hands.

He could think through a problem,
work through a solution,
and turn an idea into something real.

That was Babe.

A brilliant mind.
A brilliant man.

A man who could look at almost anything
and understand it.

A man who could take something complicated
and make it work.

A man who didn’t need to be told
that a problem was impossible.
He would simply study it,
try another way,
and keep going until he proved it wasn’t.

I want to remember the man
who could look at a pile of parts
and imagine something whole.

The man who wasn’t afraid to get dirty,
who trusted his own understanding,
and who had the patience to keep working
until everything came together.

The man whose hands were rarely clean
because his mind was rarely still.

The man who could fix just about anything
you put in front of him.

My husband.
My children’s father.
My grease monkey.

And if heaven has work for a man like Babe,
I can only imagine him there,
looking at something nobody else understands,
studying it carefully,
rolling up his sleeves,
and saying,

Give me a minute. I’ll figure it out.

Because that was who he was.

He was clever.
He was capable.
He was curious.
He was determined.

He had a mind that could see connections,
a memory that held onto details,
and a natural ability to understand
how things worked.

He didn’t just know how to fix machines.
He knew how to think.

And I loved watching him do it.

I loved the way his face changed
when he finally found the answer.
I loved the confidence in his voice
when he explained what had gone wrong.
I loved how certain he could be
when he knew he had figured it out.

Even when I only understood
about half of what he was saying,
I loved listening to him explain it.

He made intelligence look practical.
He made knowledge look useful.
He showed us that being smart
wasn’t about having all the answers immediately.

It was about being willing to look closer,
think harder,
and keep trying.

And that is what he left with us:
the courage to keep going,
the patience to look closer,
and the belief that even the hardest problems
are worth trying to understand.

His hands may be gone from this world,
but the things he taught us remain.
His way of thinking,
his determination,
his love,
and the mark he left on all of us
will continue through his children,
through his family,
and through every life he touched.

So when I feel lost without him,
I will remember what Babe would have done.

I will take a breath.
I will look closer.
I will keep going.

Because he taught me that even when something feels broken,
there may still be a way forward.

And because I carry his love with me,
I know I am not facing life alone.

Because here on Earth,
I knew the man who could understand almost anything.

And I loved him,
grease and all.

I would give anything to have one more day
watching that brilliant mind figure something out.

But until the day we meet again,
I will carry his memory,
his lessons,
and his love with me.

And I will keep going—
stronger because I was loved by him,
braver because I knew him,
and forever grateful
that I got to call him mine.