Eulogy for Rudy Stiener
Rudy Stiener was the best friend anyone could ever have, and he was mine. He was kind and compassionate yet a Saukerl at the same time a mixture only Rudy could accomplish. Rudy was the type of person who would egg you on to do something yet have your back while you were doing it. He always understood when you had to do something and have your back back while you did it. He had my back for more than one hair brained scheme and now I wish I had had his more often. He knew what was important in life and what could be forgotten, unlike me. Rudy was the calm to my storm, the risk taker to my book worm. Maybe that's why we got along so well we were total opposites yet so similar at the same time. Rudy knew when to say it's going to be okay and when to be honest. He would however, put the truth in the crudest way possible. Over the years I knew him he went from bread taker to bread giver, from a kid who wanted to be Jesse Owens to a young man comfortable in his own skin, from a bratty kid to mature young man. Yet he was still Rudy, still my best friend. How he managed that is beyond me. I don't think I'm supposed to figure it out. On the first day I met him he throw a snowball, that was mostly mud, at me: in later years he would jump in the river and rescue books that people would throw in. He was the best person I have ever met or probably will ever meet, even if he was always asking for a kiss. Now I wish I had given him what he asked for. Even at fourteen he knew when he was being fed a line of crap; he knew the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lie. May he rest in God's arms as the boy with hair the color of lemons forever.