Stephen David Miller

Our enigmatic brother, Stephen David Miller, might have gotten his mischievous gleeful soulfulness from being the second son born to Angeline and Robert Miller after our dad returned from the war, on our father’s birthday November 10,1946. Steve’s older brother Bob spent two and a half years with his father overseas, so imagine the gratitude and delight that filled the home! Gregg followed soon after and the trio were free to roam and ruckus on the holly farm on Boones Ferry Road in Lake Oswego where Steve began.

His sister Beth’s birth was the catalyst for the move to NE19th and Klickitat Street in Portland close to dad’s business, Northwest Pump and Equipment Company and Angie’s mom, Mimi. The neighborhood was filled with families and parks and libraries and of course The Madeleine Catholic Church and school within walking distance. Susie and Mary came along and Steve thrived on a bigger audience and sisters to tease or do his beckoning or beat at ping pong or pool or basketball or cards. Our mother was a homemaker of surpassing skill and grace and our home was filled with music and books and baking and memorable laughing times around the nightly dinner table and there were picnics and swimming adventures and camping trips and cousins.

As was not unusual then, Steve was only a sophomore at Central Catholic High School when he made the decision to enter Mt. Angel Seminary. We looked forward to his voracious letters, we would visit monthly and be happy for his return each summer, his bandload of new friends coming and going. He finished college there, but decided the pomp and circumstance of the church was not for him. Steve was brilliant, curious, creative, opinionated, quick witted, not hesitant to dole out advice and generous as the day is long. He fashioned his own monastic and prophetic life. He simplified to get to the essence. He taught by the way he lived. He worked at a homeless shelter down on Burnside until he got his jaw broken, he worked at St. Mary’s Home For Boys, he hitchhiked across the country and would offer to work at jails so he could sleep there, until one time he was invited to stay a bit longer, forgetting he had an illegal something in his pocket. As my son wrote about his uncle -"Every family has a trickster, someone to play a little game, poke a little fun and get the party going. The secret to Steve was that under the shell of jokes he had a heart of pure kindness - a kindred spirit with his fellow men, his fellow earthlings. He was plugged right into the grand scheme and you could feel it when you saw the soul in his eyes."

Steve became a professional philosophizing dishwasher at two of Portland’s finest restaurants, Cafe De Amis (Cafe Dummy as he called it) and L'Auberge which offered an extension of home, he had very fine dining and eclectic extended families. He managed the walking distance apartments he lived in so he didn’t pay rent and didn’t own a car. Wallace Park was his backyard. He’d host picnics in Chapman park to watch the Vaux Swifts return in the fall. He loved baseball and took the bus to umpire baseball games. He had a flip phone. If he was given money he usually gave it away, he gave his myriad of nieces and nephews movie tickets for Christmas until they were eighteen. He remembered birthdays. When he began landscaping work, someone gave him a truck. The Toyota pickup with his gardening tools and the red push mower he leaves behind has eight bungee cords across the hood and just passed DEQ. A

friend he did yard work for said "By just his being, he taught me life’s lesson of success - to be able to support the lifestyle of one’s choice."

Steve moved to Multnomah Village in his later years and his days were filled with purpose and people and pleasure and song. You could find him with his folding chair most evenings in Gabriel Park with a beer watching the sunset, or perhaps at his brother Bob’s garden in Damascus or Gregg’s backyard on Alameda or occasionally on the deck at the beach watching the tide going in and out, joyfully accepting and appreciating the glory and fleet of our time here, the roll and rhythm of our days.

Steve passed peacefully in his home filled with music and books and correspondence and photographs and two baseball gloves. He was loved deeply and will be greatly missed. We are grateful for all that he taught us.

As he would say whenever I’d say I’d see him again "God Willin’ and the creek don't rise"

The family will be having a simple gathering November 10th at Bob Miller’s in Damascus, to celebrate Steve on his seventy-eighth birthday.

Donations can be made to Gregg Miller’s charity, Portland Shed: [email protected]