If you haven’t heard by now that Steve Jobs has passed then you must be living under a rock! What you may not have heard or read is Mona Simpson’s, Steve Jobs’ sister, moving eulogy.
It is interesting to find out that stories you read in novels really do happen in real life, let alone to Steve Jobs.
Mona spoke of her relationship with her brother from the time they found each other until the moment he passed. They were separated from each other but that didn’t stop Steve from finding her and that didn’t affect Steve’s relationship with her from then on.
Mona on living a simple life before she met Steve:
I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us.
My whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.
By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild.
Mona on her first encounter with Steve:
The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.
When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.
We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don’t remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I’d pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.I didn’t know much about computers.
I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.
I told Steve I’d recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.
Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.
Mona on her final moments with Steve
Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto.
November 2011
Steve Jobs’ Sister Reveals His Final Moments
“Stones in the road? I save every single one, and one day I’ll build a castle.”
—Fernando Pessoa (via oceaniceyes)
- The sound of your voice still has tears running down my face
- And I cant bring myself to delete them
- Almost like proof that you loved me once
- and I’m still talking to you as if you’re listening
October 2011
“You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke (via girlmeetsdream)
“The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.”
—Carlos Castaneda (via lastwaltzinvienna)
“I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
—Anaïs Nin (via suzywire)
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
—Alan Watts (via oceaniceyes)
“When we finally meet—when I finally find you and you finally find me and the spaces between my fingers are perfectly aligned with yours and my eyes have no other place to go but to silently trace the curves of your face and when every place begins to become our place, I’ll know that I’m yours and I’ll know that you’re mine and we’ll be perfectly fine.
This is for me to remember to read you Fitzgerald and Vonnegut, to fill your mind with empty sorrows and Dickinson: to share with you my childhood, my dirty little secrets and my sinful cravings, to make you smile and groan and confused and scared like you’ll make me—to never forget that your body will fit into mine and the moment in time where we’ll share with eachother the world that we never let anyone else have.
This is for me to remember to slip a twenty in your glove compartment for the gas we’ll need to get lost—this is for me to remember the things you’re always forgetful about and the mix of songs I’ll keep in your car to listen to—to fill the silence that you’re never really comfortable with: to hide the cat and to keep a lint roller in the trunk to get the fur off of your sweater so your mom won’t sneeze and to keep a book in the backseat for the times when music isn’t enough and kissing you isn’t safe.
I’ll remember to bookmark the pages with condoms, and you’ll remember not to dog-ear the pages that I’ve so carefully kept straight and we’ll be just fine and you’ll promise to be all mine: to hold me when I’m crying when we’re watching the last episode of a tv show or I’ve reached the last few pages of the book that I’ve read to you or when the moment comes and our relationship outlasts the cat and when my heart swells and I’ll hold you in winter where you can’t stand it or when a grown man cries in the movies we’ll watch and at the end of Toy Story, you’ll promise me that we’ll hold eachother and we’ll play with your old toys that you call action figures.
This is for me to remember that one day I’ll tie your tie and you’ll say those words and in midnight when we’re lit like stars you’ll unzip my dress and the one second when I believed that everything went right because it did and we’ll listen to indie music and you’ll hold my hand and promise me that I’m your Autumn and for the mornings that I’ll wake up and remember that I’ve stopped being alone when I met you.
This is for me to remember to not wait for you, because you’ll be there—this is for me to remember that I won’t ever really be alone because I know you’re there and this is for me to remember my childish recollections: this is for me to remember to grow up, just a little bit, and ready my heart for when the pain starts.
This is for me to remember to never give up, to never settle for someone who doesn’t really want me—for a circle when I’m a square, for anyone else but you—who I’ll meet when the time is right and I’m not bitter anymore, when my heart is feeling alright and this is for me to remember to stop being scared, to stop being so indecisive and to never forget how far the expensive lingerie in my drawer will get me and how the stars will shine one day: for just you and me.” —
This is for me to remember to read you Fitzgerald and Vonnegut, to fill your mind with empty sorrows and Dickinson: to share with you my childhood, my dirty little secrets and my sinful cravings, to make you smile and groan and confused and scared like you’ll make me—to never forget that your body will fit into mine and the moment in time where we’ll share with eachother the world that we never let anyone else have.
This is for me to remember to slip a twenty in your glove compartment for the gas we’ll need to get lost—this is for me to remember the things you’re always forgetful about and the mix of songs I’ll keep in your car to listen to—to fill the silence that you’re never really comfortable with: to hide the cat and to keep a lint roller in the trunk to get the fur off of your sweater so your mom won’t sneeze and to keep a book in the backseat for the times when music isn’t enough and kissing you isn’t safe.
I’ll remember to bookmark the pages with condoms, and you’ll remember not to dog-ear the pages that I’ve so carefully kept straight and we’ll be just fine and you’ll promise to be all mine: to hold me when I’m crying when we’re watching the last episode of a tv show or I’ve reached the last few pages of the book that I’ve read to you or when the moment comes and our relationship outlasts the cat and when my heart swells and I’ll hold you in winter where you can’t stand it or when a grown man cries in the movies we’ll watch and at the end of Toy Story, you’ll promise me that we’ll hold eachother and we’ll play with your old toys that you call action figures.
This is for me to remember that one day I’ll tie your tie and you’ll say those words and in midnight when we’re lit like stars you’ll unzip my dress and the one second when I believed that everything went right because it did and we’ll listen to indie music and you’ll hold my hand and promise me that I’m your Autumn and for the mornings that I’ll wake up and remember that I’ve stopped being alone when I met you.
This is for me to remember to not wait for you, because you’ll be there—this is for me to remember that I won’t ever really be alone because I know you’re there and this is for me to remember my childish recollections: this is for me to remember to grow up, just a little bit, and ready my heart for when the pain starts.
This is for me to remember to never give up, to never settle for someone who doesn’t really want me—for a circle when I’m a square, for anyone else but you—who I’ll meet when the time is right and I’m not bitter anymore, when my heart is feeling alright and this is for me to remember to stop being scared, to stop being so indecisive and to never forget how far the expensive lingerie in my drawer will get me and how the stars will shine one day: for just you and me.” —
