Steven Strauss - Eulogy by Samantha Strauss

As dad said earlier today Steven Strauss loved  words and today was certainly a “minatory” sky.  At Christmas when he was in the hospital he quoted entire soliloquies from King Lear. He’d performed in it in London before coming out to Australia. Sir John Gielgud was the star and Steven only had one line yet he knew the entire play by heart. And never forgot it. He wanted to be an actor and I know he would have been good at it.

Steven always said that he decided to do law because it meant he could stay at university for another year. I only recently found out this wasn’t the whole story. Back in Germany, Steven’s father would settle disputes between farmers and at livestock auctions. He was inspired by how words could be used to settle conflicts.

I’ve been to Steven’s  Lauterbach and it is the fairytale town that he spoke of. The house he grew up in is still standing, almost exactly as he remembers it. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to go from those Hessen chocolate box houses around the silver lake, with lanterns hanging across the lane ways, to the dry desolation of the Hay internment camp. But while Steven occasionally grizzled about a sore back, or an aching joint, he never ever complained about what had happened to him and what brought him to Australia. Or how much he lost. Instead, he always appreciated how lucky he was.

I was lucky enough to be home last week and we went with dad out to lunch at Amimoto in Surfers. Steven looked around and beamed, making his rosy, red cheeks glow even brighter. My sister has been lucky enough to inherit those rosy red cheeks. He loved that we’d been going to the same place, ordering the same lunch – no exceptions – for the last seventeen years. And in the same breath he said how happy he was with his life.

Grandpop Steven loved words, loved his work, and loved his family. Betty was his golden girl – the bitch he couldn’t possibly be without – and he was so proud of his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, boasting that they were the cleverest, most beautiful, in all the world. I can assure you we were just as proud of him.

I knew him as a kind, wise man. Who would correct my school assignments and giggle when we tickled him on the street. He could charm anyone and make any girl feel special. I felt very special when he moved to the Gold Coast and I could join him, my father, sloberdan and baxter on the nightly walk.  People would point or toot their horns and say “there go the strausses”. Three generations of us.

He was someone who didn’t often like to look back. Who would prefer to concentrate on the moment. In his last few years it was the simplest things which made him happy. But what made him the most satisfied was to look around and see what he had produced – us – and know that he’d done something very right.

He was one of my best friends. And so influential in the way I see the world and how important it is to love what you do. Because he did, every day. I will hold him in my heart and take him with me forever.