02-19-2014, 08:42 PM
I have received an email from Stein's widow. Was greatly pleased to hear from her. For those of you who don't know, Stein was a highly respected and knowledgeable member from Norway, with N. American connections, whose impact on this forum was considerable. He had an untimely and sad passing that was very sudden for such a young family man in October of 2012. I will let Lora's comments speak for themselves, as follows:
Hi, Crandell --
I'm afraid that the demands of coping with Stein's loss kept me from
replying to your kind e-mail and kind comments on the forum.
In October we passed the one-year mark. It was a year with many firsts -
first Christmas without Stein, first summer vacation without Stein,
etc. The year generally went okay, but it hasn't been easy and I miss him
more each day.
A couple people on the Model Railroader forum commented that they had
gotten private messages from Stein that made them laugh all day. It would
be fun to see an example, although maybe it's railroad humor that I
wouldn't understand. I don't know if you can get a message to them or not
(..names of two forumites...).
People on the forum naturally wondered how he died. It happened suddenly
in the night, and the symptoms point to a blood clot in the lung. There
was no autopsy. He had had a tough time that fall, with problems in both
legs - gout, injury and infection in a series of combinations. He'd get a
little better, than worse again. For a few days, he even needed a
wheelchair, So much inactivity, combined with a knee injury, probably
created the conditions for the blood clot.
That fall he did a lot of working from home, either sitting or lying down
in bed. The weekend he died, he actually seemed better. He had been to
work on Friday for the first time in a couple weeks (though his co-workers
thought he should have stayed home). He was also pottering around outside
on the porch that weekend. So it came as a shock when he called out for me
in the middle of the night. I was able to talk to him for awhile before he
collapsed waiting for the ambulance. The neighbor and I tried CPR but to
no avail.
Feel free to share this on the forum if you'd like, and thank everyone for
their messages of sympathy back in 2012.
Yours
Lora Rypern
[end of text]
-Crandell
Hi, Crandell --
I'm afraid that the demands of coping with Stein's loss kept me from
replying to your kind e-mail and kind comments on the forum.
In October we passed the one-year mark. It was a year with many firsts -
first Christmas without Stein, first summer vacation without Stein,
etc. The year generally went okay, but it hasn't been easy and I miss him
more each day.
A couple people on the Model Railroader forum commented that they had
gotten private messages from Stein that made them laugh all day. It would
be fun to see an example, although maybe it's railroad humor that I
wouldn't understand. I don't know if you can get a message to them or not
(..names of two forumites...).
People on the forum naturally wondered how he died. It happened suddenly
in the night, and the symptoms point to a blood clot in the lung. There
was no autopsy. He had had a tough time that fall, with problems in both
legs - gout, injury and infection in a series of combinations. He'd get a
little better, than worse again. For a few days, he even needed a
wheelchair, So much inactivity, combined with a knee injury, probably
created the conditions for the blood clot.
That fall he did a lot of working from home, either sitting or lying down
in bed. The weekend he died, he actually seemed better. He had been to
work on Friday for the first time in a couple weeks (though his co-workers
thought he should have stayed home). He was also pottering around outside
on the porch that weekend. So it came as a shock when he called out for me
in the middle of the night. I was able to talk to him for awhile before he
collapsed waiting for the ambulance. The neighbor and I tried CPR but to
no avail.
Feel free to share this on the forum if you'd like, and thank everyone for
their messages of sympathy back in 2012.
Yours
Lora Rypern
[end of text]
-Crandell