(With love and laughter by Michele Hwozdyk)
On September 25, 2007 Steve and Andrea Hillman celebrated their fourteenth wedding anniversary. Andrea Durbin who grew up in Fountain just south of Colorado Springs met Steve Hillman, a charming and somewhat shy guy, in Greeley when she was a senior at the University of Northern Colorado. Steve, a hard worker with an adventurous spirit liked to rodeo and spent his weekends competing in bare-back events. Andrea ended up falling for a cowboy and Steve couldn't help but fall for Andrea. The couple got married in the fall of 1993 and the Hillmans eventually joined our community
in the spring of 1995 when they moved to their home in Larkspur and began raising their growing family. Amber was born in 1997 and Seth followed in 2003. Any day of the week you were likely to meet up with extended family, friends and neighbors who would be gathered at the Hillman home for a birthday or anniversary party or to head out to go play hockey or camping. If you were lucky, you were there on a morning when Steve was cooking up a big breakfast, and the mouth watering aroma of his famous home fries wafted your way. In January of 1999, Steve and Andrea later made the jump into entrepreneurship and started Hillman Transportation as owners and operator of an independent trucking business. Their family struggled with the same issues we all deal with; raising our kids, running a household and growing a business, but overall life was good.
Sunday, September 30, 2007 was another get-together with the Hillmans, with friends and family arriving to celebrate Seth's 4 th birthday at the local bowling alley. Kids shrieking with laughter ran through clusters of people chatting. No one noticed when Steve slipped out of the festivities just before "Spiderman" arrived. Seth's blue eyes lit up and his grin was from ear to ear as Spiderman helped him to blow out his candles. Big sister Amber had the knowing smile of someone on the inside of a secret. All seemed right with the world and no one could have imagined how tragically wrong the day would end.
Later that afternoon, Steve and his brother-in-law, Dr. Chris Malherbe, took out the All Terrain Vehicles to ride around the hard dirt packed lanes of the neighborhood. At some point Chris noticed Steve was not behind him. When he went back, he found Steve face down on the ground after being thrown from the ATV. Clearly, this was a serious accident and 911 was called. Steve was airlifted to Memorial hospital in critical condition. On Monday, October 1 st, surrounded by family, 38-year-old Steve Hillman was pronounced dead. Friends and family were devastated and Andrea began to collapse under the crushing grief of losing her husband and father of their young children. This was not supposed to happen; they were supposed to grow old together. "How am I supposed to survive this?" she asked herself. Those around her were not only grieving at the loss of their dear friend Steve but also grappling with feelings of helplessness knowing that nothing they did or said could ease the pain Andrea and the kids were feeling. In the days to follow, life became surreal and the house was flooded with people trying to help in some way. Food and flowers began to clutter the counters and the voicemail filled up daily.
Somehow, everyone made it through the funeral services that week at St. Peter's Church in Monument and Steve's remains were lovingly laid to rest. It was then that the business of life began. Taking care of her kids and sorting through the estate of her husband takes every ounce of energy and focusing on the staggering amount of details in closing down a business and learning how to live a new life without her husband keeps Andrea moving forward. There is a long road ahead with several difficult milestones to endure, but right now Andrea can only live minute to minute. Amber turned ten this past week and the holidays are just around the corner. Andrea knows in her head that there will be joy in their lives again, but can't begin to feel it in her heart which breaks again each time the realization of what happened hits her. Visits with a counselor have helped them start to put back pieces of their shattered family and the love of relatives and friends as well as their faith in God has been comforting. Four-year-old Seth still asks "When will Daddy be home?" Ten-year-old Amber struggles to understand how mommy's pain of losing a husband could possibly compare with her pain at the loss of her daddy. The rest of us watch from the outside, not being able to imagine how difficult it is and not wanting to. Instead, we share our favorite stories about Steve, of which there are many, and we laugh until we cry and then we remember that those are in the past and now we move forward, minute by minute.
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Monument Academy, where Amber Hillman is in the fourth grade, announced that an anonymous donor has offered to donate matching funds of $.50 for every dollar that the school can raise for the Hillman family by Friday, October 12, 2007. In addition, The Steve Hillman Trust, an educational trust fund for the children, has been set up at ENT Credit Union in Monument