My clever, funny, wonderful father, Robert Stevens, died on Saturday morning after a long illness.
He led an amazing and rich life (sample stories include ‘once during the War a bomb landed at the bottom of our garden but it didn’t go off’ and ‘my first wife and I were part of the test cases that led to Roe vs Wade’) and I feel so lucky to have been able to share it with him.
He’s been loudly predicting his death since my siblings were children, and has survived an amazing list of illnesses, but his indomitable spirit and incredible stubborn streak took him all the way to 87 years old, outlasting every doctor’s prediction. It still doesn’t feel real.
He was a loyal husband to my mother Kathie, a brilliant father to my brother Richard, my sister Carey, and me, and a loving grandfather to my niece Rebecca and nephew Ryan. We’ve all known this was coming but it’s still a painful shock.
am so proud of all of Dad’s accomplishments at all of the institutions he worked at, and very touched by the tributes that are coming in. Pembroke College Oxford, where he was Master when I was a child, have written this wonderful piece on his achievements, and Haverford College, where he was working when my parents met, have written this. It makes me so proud to know that Dad was the President who finally pushed them to admit women during his tenure, against enormous opposition. And not forgetting UC Santa Cruz, where he was Chancellor when I was born, and where he (and truly, this is one of the most important aspects of his legacy) finally allowed the students to have the banana slug as their school mascot.
Dad was the reason I got into crime fiction and murder mysteries – he gave me all of the authors who have become most important to me – and I feel so lucky to know how thrilled he was with what I’m doing with my life. He was one of my biggest supporters.
I’m not going to be online much over the next month or so, for obvious reasons – please do be patient if you’ve sent me a message. I’ll get to it when I can, but at the moment my first priority is my family, and taking time to grieve. I will not be posting new videos, or sending out newsletters – please do not be in touch asking about these, as I will not respond.
If you would like to pay tribute to Dad (and please don’t feel you have to!), a donation to Dementia UK in his name would be very meaningful, or a donation to a charity that works to expand access to education, something that he was absolutely passionate about. His granddaughter Rebecca has nominated the Bi-Co Mutual Aid fund if you’re in America.
Finally, I want to thank the incredible NHS staff who took care of him during his last hospital visits, and the staff of his care home who were so kind and loving towards him, and managed to keep Covid out for the whole pandemic so we could be with him in his final days. I am so grateful, and I feel so lucky that his passing was peaceful and surrounded by people who cared.
Dad is, of course, in my books, in aspects of the fathers of both Daisy and Hazel. I’m glad to know he’s there, and he’ll always be there. I miss you, Dad.
This post was originally a Twitter thread – if you’d like to see more photographs of Dad, please head over there.
