Metro

Cover Story

A LIFE NOT FORGOTTEN from page 15

"Because of his good
deeds, he earned and
received the friendship
of two communities, the
warm embrace of
friends and even the
appreciation of total
strangers. He rose above
his problems in as digni-
fied of a manner that he
could muster. There is a
famous poem that talks
about the importance of
the dash between the
date of birth and the
date of death on a mon-
ument. The poem
describes how the dates
are not as important as
what an individual
accomplishes during the
`dash" between them.
Bruce should have been
proud of what he
achieved during the
Wash" of his life."

— Otto Dube, Ira
Kaufman Chapel

2/17
2005

16

the `miyanaires' felt he had a mental
illness, but that didn't stop them from
trying to befriend him," Rabbi
Krakoff said.
Steam's tall, stooped figure was a
familiar sight at the auto showrooms
where dealers would allow him to get
behind the wheel and pretend to drive.
"Bruce was, in most respects, a
very bright, intelligent man,"
Gutman said. "He didn't have a bad
bone in his body. He just wanted to
be loved."
When Stearn collapsed and died on
Thanksgiving Day, he had in his pock-
et the names and numbers of his sec-
ond surrogate family.
"Bruce had been coming to St.
Gregory's for 15 years; before that, he
went to St. Bridget's," said Sister M.
Sylvia Grey, who made Steam her spe-
cial charge.
"It took him three buses to get here
— I don't know how he did it. One of
our parishioners would always drive
him home."

Referring to his
participation in
both Catholic and
Jewish ceremonies,
Sister Sylvia called
Stearn "a real
Judeo-Christian."

Rabbi Krakoff

On His Own

In many ways,
Deutch knew
Steam better than anyone. The two
met about 30 years ago at the Jewish
Community Center at Curtis and
Meyers in Detroit.
"I had him to my house and to my
parents' house," Deutch said. "A
bunch of us guys used to take him out
to dinner. Especially Lelli's — he liked
Italian food. They'd make special dish-
es for him. He was a big guy, and
they'd make him extra-big portions."
Deutch, a lawyer, helped his friend
out with money and represented him
against the State of Michigan when
the state wanted him institutionalized.

Suffering Among Us

About 2,000
local Jews have
serious chronic
mental illness.

0 my a small percentage of the
Jewish adults with schizo-
phrenia or bipolar disorder
find their way to the agencies estab-
lished to treat them, said Janette
Shallal, executive director of
Kadima (Hebrew for "moving for-
ward"), a Southfield-based, non-
profit agency that works with adults
with schizophrenia and bipolar dis-
order.
There are probably about 2,000
Janette Shallal of Kadima, which aids
Jewish people with serious, chronic
hundreds of Jewish clients.
mental illness in Oakland County
alone, Shallal said. "We work with a
few hundred at any given time. Some
die or the burden becomes too
of the others are getting some assis-
overwhelming, the now-adult child
tance, but many are living on their
may be left without adequate care,
own without any assistance from the
she said.
community, living with a very poor
"What keeps me going is that I see
quality of life."
so many miracles here at Kadima,"
In the Jewish community, parents
Shallal said. "Within six months to a
will often protect their schizo-
year, you can stabilize a person and
phrenic children. When the parents
improve their lives 100 percent."

Stearn very much wanted to be on
his own, even though he knew he had
special problems.
"I've been involved with JARC
homes for years and years," Deutch
said. "Bruce wouldn't have cut it there.
He needed to be independent."
Stearn was sometimes difficult to be
around, friends said. Because of his
size — he was well over 6 feet in
height — he could be frightening to
others, especially when he talked loud-
ly to himself. At one point, an elderly
woman called police when he
approached her, evidently to help
carry her groceries, and he was jailed
for several months. Others report see-
ing him physically strike out at others,
but said they assume this only hap-
pened when he'd stopped taking his
medication.
Although some of Stearn's behavior
was consistent with schizophrenia,
Sister Sylvia disagrees.
"He had emotional and physical
problems, but I wouldn't call them
schizophrenia," Sister Sylvia said. "He
was being treated by a psychologist
and was on medication, but he resisted
group therapy and very much did not
want to be in a group home.
Sometimes I would suggest it, but
there was no way he'd agree."
When Steam talked to himself, it
was mostly about cars, she said, but he
would occasionally talk about his fam-
ily. As Sister Sylvia spoke with the
troubled man, she learned that his par-
ents were dead and the only living rel-
atives he knew of were an elderly aunt
and one cousin, both in California.
"He never wanted to see them," she
said. "He hadn't spoken to them in 20
years."

The Last Days

At the end of his life, Steam was living
in a shelter run by COTS (the
Coalition on Temporary Shelter), a
nonprofit organization that operates
housing shelters in southeast
Michigan.
"Bruce could remember everything
that ever happened to him or around
him, but he couldn't put it together,"
Deutch said.
The tragic element in his friend's
life was that, while Stearn knew what
was going on and that he was differ-
ent, he was unable to do anything
about it.
"His goal in life was to be like every-
one else," Deutch said.
At Stearn's graveside funeral, Rabbi
Krakoff looked around at more than 80
mourners, including Gutman, Rabbi
Jonathan Berkun, Cantor Chaim

