Steve was one of the first people in the department to reach out to me five years ago when I first started working where I work now. I was going through an ugly divorce at the time and was forced to leave a job that I was not totally comfortable with, for a job in corporate America. Steve helped me adjust. Then September 11 happened and the whole world changed. My son joined the army and went to boot camp, and shortly after completeing Advanced Infantry Training, he went to Ft. Campbell to join the 101st Airborne, and in short turn shipped out to Kuwait to await the invasion of Iraq. Steve's son suffers from ADHD. Steve thinks my sons are great. He thinks they have purpose. He can't see his son having that. A long hard year passed where I was hanging on the edge of a cliff. I can't tell you what it's like to see your son on the cover of newsweek, dirty; sunburned; disgusted; with a wrack of bullets around his neck. He shot a tow missle into the house where Oday and Qusay Hussein were being protected by a 14 year old. He ran over a road side bomb and lived to e-mail me on my birthday that he was ok. He cleaned up after the two black hawks collided. He cleaned up after his buddies were killed and dragged throught the streets of Mosul...but he came home. I was there when they kissed the ground of Blanchard Field. Our family was celebrating in high style...We made it through the hard times...or so I thought. Two months later I sat in a consultation room at the Breast Health Center and had a radiologist tell me "You have several masses in your left breast and I'm 90% certain they are cancer". I did indeed have cancer...Stage III, S phase, ER/PR negative, Her/2-neu strongly positive, tumor >5cm, 7/12 positive lymph nodes. The only good prognostic indicator that I have is that I'm still alive. When I had to leave work to be treated, Steve was the first one to show up in my cube. His father-in-law had just died of pancreatic cancer and he knew the danger I was in. He was obviously moved. He wrote every week while I was on disability. He was the first person in my cube the day I came back to work. He wanted to be sure that the first lunch I had would be spent with him. He was wearing a pink arm band. He said that his wife and son were wearing th
