In Memory of a Wonderful Man, Our Son Matthew

Our son Matthew, December 4, 2009, just after earning his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do

Matthew and his son Noah, who also earned his own green belt at the same time.

Matthew in action...

These pictures above were taken in December of 2009, just a few months before he was diagnosed with Desmoplastic Small Round Cell Tumor, a rare and deadly cancer that would take his life after a valiant battle for over four years. It's amazing to me to see him above as a picture of perfect health, and then just a few months later to receive the devastating news that he had terminal cancer.

Here is the Tae Kwon Do instructor, "Thy", presenting Matthew with a black belt for his bravery and courage in fighting this horrific foe for four very difficult years, April 2014, just about one month before Matthew passed away on May 25, 2014, at the age of 41 years and 3 months.

This is what I wrote on Matthew's Facebook page this morning. Yes, he still has a Facebook page. I'm so glad it hasn't been taken down, as there are a lot of sweet memories and messages there from Matthew from over the years:

"Today, February 25, 2025, is your 52nd birthday, Matthew Steiner. But you've been celebrating your birthdays in heaven since you arrived there on May 25, 2014. I can only imagine what joys and blessings you've been enjoying for all these years. Today I found myself looking back at these photos of when you were in Tae Kwon Do, and first when you earned your yellow belt on 12/4/2009..which was just a few months before you were diagnosed with cancer. And then when your Tae Kwon Do "Master" Thy presented you with your Black Belt in April of 2014, after you had been valiantly fighting your battle with cancer for 4 long years, and just about one month before you entered heaven, where you received your greatest reward ever...meeting Jesus face to face and being welcomed into heaven by the true Master of Heaven and earth. Someday we will join you there, and we look forward to that day with all our hearts.
John 14:1-3 KJV
1 "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
Happy Heavenly Birthday, Matthew Steiner. We love you and miss you here, but we know we will see you again someday! Praise be to Jesus!!"

Every year at this time I struggle with what to say and what to do, but I don't want the day to pass without doing something in his memory.  In times past we have usually planted something in the "Memorial Garden", or the "Butterfly Garden", or somewhere on our property in his memory.  Sadly, you'd never know it to look at our gardens today. Of course it's still "winter", and we had a big freeze a couple of weeks ago which froze a lot of our plants...but hopefully most of them will come back.

So this morning hubby and I went to our local Ace Hardware garden center and picked out this healthy looking Hibiscus plant.  It has lots of buds on it, so hopefully it will bloom and thrive.  I just spoke with our son Benton about helping us plant it, and we decided to wait until Sunday when hopefully our other son Scott will come down and we can all plant it together. That's what we've done in the past, made it a family affair.  

Hopefully I can keep this alive and growing and blooming!

Here's a Link to a post written on February 25, 2024, where we planted a rose bush.  That bush is still alive at least, but it hasn't done much blooming recently. Hopefully with all the rain we've been having this month it will come back and start blooming again. Likewise the same for the rose bush that is in the Memorial Garden that I've written about many times in the past.  I do see new growth on it, so hopefully it will start blooming again soon.

Memorial Garden Rose Bush 2/25/2025

Link to post I wrote on this day in 2023, Matthew's 50th birthday. Within this post there are links to many other previous posts that I wrote over the years about Matthew's life.

Yes, we want his memory to live on, until we meet again someday in heaven. And then it will be someone else's turn to keep the memories alive...but for us in heaven it will be all JOY and Thanksgiving!

This picture was taken at Matthew's last birthday party here on earth, February 25, 2014. It was a day of a lot of laughter and joy, as our whole family gathered together to celebrate his birthday! As you can tell, he was having a great time.  That's the way I like to remember him...our happy, goofy, wonderful Matthew.

Happy Heavenly Birthday Matthew! Until we meet again.