Steve Emery Memorial Fund

My husband, our dad, our Papa, our brother, our uncle- He was our ROCK. Our man. At the age of 66 he is gone, just like that. Steve was the solid foundation of this family and he built that foundation on his relationship with his Heavenly Father. He had a direct line between his prayers and our lives. He used to say that his ceiling would be his children's floor to build up and take what we learned from him and have our ceiling be our children's floors. He was constantly telling us to not worry... just pray. In fact that was the last thing he said to two of us girls. We love this man with our entire souls... he is the epitome of a Godly Man. One of his best friends describes him as a man of Honor, a Prophet of God, a confidant, a spiritual advisor, a Bible teacher, a personal intercessor, and an amazing friend. Those are just a few of the descriptors of who our Patriarch was. 

On Wednesday October 23, Dad woke up experiencing chest pain at 6 in the morning. He said the pain was bad at first but got better so didn't say anything to anyone. He drove mom to work and then informed her that he was still having pressure and was going to go in to the ER just to be safe. He arrived and they checked him immediately for a heart attack and it came back negative. They did blood work which also looked great. The doctors were unsure of what was causing the pain but did a CT scan since he had previous issues with blood clots. After the test was completed but before the results came back, dad used the bathroom and on his way back into his room told the doctor how sick he felt all of a sudden. He was having severe pain in his chest and his heart rate dropped drastically. They couldn't get a blood pressure and did another EKG that still showed he was not having a heart attack. His heart rate continued to drop and they started CPR. They worked for 25 minutes to get his heart beating again but he had already joined his parents in Heaven. The doctor read the CT results after all this happened and their conclusion is that the enlarged aortic valve he has had for years had enlarged and caused an aneurysm.

After 2 years of dealing with life threatening illnesses, dad had recently been given good health reports from all of his doctors. So as you can imagine we are all in absolute shock from this quick and unexpected death. Although dad and mom had begun discussing plans for "what if," there was nothing set in place.  

At this time we as a family are coming together to humble ourselves and ask for help. For our mom- she is not in a financial position to have this sudden burden on her shoulders. For the family to be able to pay for all of the end of life expenses as one would imagine we are finding out are extremely expensive. We cannot express in advance how grateful we are to anyone who finds it in their heart to donate. We love you all family and friends.