Life truly is but a vapor

Our brother and our friend went in for emergency open heart surgery yesterday.  He was a young man of 55 and now a days (to me anyway) open heart surgery is an every day occurrence!  His words were, " I guess my aorta is leaking into my chest and they need to do a little valve replacement. I will be here for about a week. " He did not make it through the surgery and we are all in a state of shock!  The waves of gut wrenching sobs just keep coming.  They are inter mixed with the laughter of memories of this dear person that one minute you could wring his neck and the next there was nothing but love for the kindness that came from him.  I like to think of him as the little cartoon character, Pigpen, in the Peanuts cartoon....  He would laugh at this as well.  It was common knowledge in our/his family that Steve was 'an accident waiting to happen'.   He was like a faithful little mutt that was so happy to be a part of a family that loved and accepted him with all of his little quirks.  He did the same for us.  No matter how bitchy any of us were, he just kept coming back and with a couple of packages of his homemade baklava....and shallow as we are, all was forgiven :)
A missing piece of puzzle that makes this family what it is ( complicated and very hard to understand) is missing and we are all floundering.  We take turns crying and then getting strength  from the gales of laughter that escapes from our fond   memory of Steve Seidel. 

I don't understand this at all and my eyes are swollen from the salt in my tears...God, please help me to understand what the purpose is in this. 

I realize that I have depended on this quirky, mischievous, caring  man for a lot of things.  My main dependence was that he kept tabs on Mark as closely as I did.   The roles switched when Mark started having brain seizures.  By the roles I mean the one between him and Mark.  Mark had always been the 'big' brother and Steve the little one that was forever getting himself into "fixes" that Mark had to get him out of.  Steve quickly 'grew up' when Mark needed someone to watch out for him when I wasn't around.  He would text me secretly when he had a concern for Mark and I would do the same.  Oh, now, DO NOT get me wrong --there were times that I wanted to knock him out--but mostly, he was my little brother and Uncle Steve to my girls and grand kids. 

My mom called him 'el hermano' when she lived with us.  She considered him part of our pack as well.  She loved Steve because he loved us.  She loved him because he loved to eat like all of us do : ) She loved him because she thought he was a good man.  She loved him because WE loved him.


I did not realize how much we loved him nor how much I love every member of my family and my friends.   I do not want to wait until any of you die before I realize that.  I am NOT ready to have family gatherings without our brother.  I weep because I will not ever see him on this earth again.  I smile because I know that he is peace filled and worry free.  I am so very happy that I told him that we loved him and that we were all praying for him...my last words to him were....'see you soon' !  

So much to process...the veil between life and death.  I want to just shake God and ask "WHY!!!" and 'what does this mean?'  How much more God?   Cool side bar here...today we had to go to Steve's apt. and his bible was on his bed.  I took it for a sign (because I like signs) that - it's all good! 
 
Tomorrow is a new day so perhaps I need some sleep because the bible says that  "Joy comes in the morning".  Amen :)