When Stefan’s around you’d better make sure you have Adam’s Crunchy Peanut Butter in the fridge, time for thoughtful conversations and energy for the next game of Coup, hike up Millcreek or throwing weights around the garage.
Of everyone in our family, Stefan may have lost the most to the pandemic, and yet he added so much to our year.
On Stefan’s birthday last year, he and Heather threw everything they owned in storage, closed up their apartment and caught the last flight out of Boston to SLC. They haven’t been back to Boston since. In fact, they had nothing but what they’d packed into two suitcases from March to December.
They wanted to go back. Oh how they wanted to go back. Heather worked in campus events, Stefan strolled across Harvard Yard to class, they loved their friends, Tatte Bakery and their ward congregation. But even in December, the risk was too great, the cost too much, so they hired movers to bring their KitchenAid, blue shelves, old couch and everything else across the country.
Like so many others, Stefan’s schooling switched from lecture halls to a folding table in the basement. His summer internship in San Diego evaporated and they applied for jobs in Utah. And to be honest, that changed the course of their lives for the next several years. Most likely, Stef and Heather would have settled in San Diego and we’d be missing them at every family dinner for the next decade.
Yet, they are here. And they’ve been here for it all— graduations, birthdays, coaxing smiles from baby Fritzie, home MTC, church In the mountains, brownies at midnight, throwing gasoline on the fire at cookouts, hugging Gabe goodbye, dressing up as gnomes for Halloween, cross country skiing and so much studying at the kitchen counter.
If you ask Stefan, he’ll tell you it’s been a fantastic year. ❤️ Happy birthday darling boy, I’m so grateful you’ve been here.
