This has been an up and down few weeks, between me being brave enough to go to Connor’s grave on my own, realizing that Steve Keyes my amazing boss/friend has been gone 4 years and the knowledge that thru all of this somehow Kyle managed to turn 27. I’m not sure how that happened. I blinked, and he was 5, then again and he graduated from elementary school, another blink and he was a tech graduate with a whole adult life of his own. It’s crazy how those things happen.

Steve Keyes was a force of nature all on his own. In the 9 years I worked for S Keyes Electric, Inc. I was in 6 locations. It got so we could pack my office like a Tetris game in less than an hour, then I would stand and direct as to where I wanted the furniture. The guys wud place the big stuff, and I wud tweak after they left. My true favorite office was the one in Millers in the rental property with the piano that was his pride n joy. That piano followed me to the space that used to be the liquor store in Whately and then to our final space at 13 State Rd in Whately. I used it as filing and organization space. What else do you use a baby grand piano for in an office?

I’m not sure there was a much better boss than Steve, he came and sat with me in the hospital when Connor was in Baystate PICU, he had my coworker Rachel Jackson bring me a care package in the form of a basket that weighed more than she did. I dragged the blanket around the hospital like Linus for the 12 days I was there. He missed a Patriots playoff game to be one of Connor’s pallbearers, and started our day with a fireball toast. Saying we all needed it , and he was right. He was the “Captain” of the Keyes Electric Dodgeball Team when a Dodgeball Tournament was held as a fundraiser after Connor died. They didn’t win, but they sure had a good time.

A group of us from S Keyes Electric went to see Tom Petty and Joe Walsh at the Xfinity Center in Hartford . To this day the song “Life’s Been Good” reduces me to tears, because that was Steve and I. He broke it and I fixed it.

There were 15 of us in a 15 passenger van, with 8 coolers, 6 blankets and 10 chairs. It forever became known as the “S KEYES ELECTRIC TRAVELING SHIT SHOW”. As we got off the 91 exit for Xfinity Steve announced, “I gotta pee, open the door Mark, I gotta pee.” My husband opened the sliding van door. Steve hopped out, traffic began to move, so he was walking and peeing as the van was traveling down the exit ramp. I can’t make this shit up. We finally found a place to park the van, and all dispersed, with instructions of where we were gonna sit. As expected we lost Steve in the first 20 minutes, he wouldn’t answer his phone. Rachel and I just looked at each-other and rolled our eyes. Knowing st least he didn’t have the keys and he would show up eventually. He did, with his knees all bloodied and banged up. He tried to jump over a jersey barrier and missed. He was a walking train wreck, always, but you took him good, bad and ugly because that was who he was.

The next morning I had to take him to the Greenfield Court House so he could turn himself in for the infraction from the day before. That’s when I knew he was more than my boss. I cried all the way home from the courthouse. I knew where the cash was if I needed to bail him out, but he called me 2 hrs later to come get him, they let him out ROR. That was life with Steve.

He worked hard, and he played hard too. He loved hard, would do anything for the people that he loved, and was known to pick up strays, people more than animals. He was always finding things to do for employees that weren’t electricians, but needed jobs. They mowed lawns, painted, moved things, organized vans and the shop. He was a giver in the true sense of the word. The world needs more people like him, but I guess the heavens needed him more.