The mourners began assembling just after noon at Fairmount Mortuary Chapel, braving an intermittent rain to say goodbye to Stevie Burns.
The Littleton 19-year-old died Saturday in the Little Dolores River near Glade Park. He had jumped in when a friend, Kristen Kroonenberg, floundered in the swift and bone-cold water.
Burns managed to bring Kroonenberg to the riverbank, where he handed her off to a friend before the river swept him off. A strong swimmer, he fought a runoff current that pinned him to a slick cliff behind a waterfall. Then he drowned.
Alyssa Juoni was among the first to arrive Thursday at Fairmount, the lovely old cemetery at South Quebec Street and East Alameda Avenue.
“Stevie was an outstanding person,” she said. “He always had a hug for everyone. Even the weirdest kids, Stevie would befriend.
“He was just so full of life.”
Which makes his death particularly hard on Juoni and her friends. Stevie’s friends.
In the hush of the small viewing room, this: a young man in a dark wooden casket, clad in a Celtics cap and the No. 20 jersey from his days playing football at Columbine High School. A photo of his dog in his hands, and beside him a football and a baseball. Photos of friends and family. Sports trophies, including one for bowling, a pastime he loved. He once rolled a 298.
And flowers. Lots of them.
Frankie Hayden, 20, had flown in from Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he serves in the Marine Corps.
“He was very compassionate,” Hayden said of his friend of five years, a lifetime at their age. “If he met someone new, he’d just open his arms to him. That was Stevie.”
Hayden is trying to wrap his head around the fact that his friend is dead. But here’s the thing: The way he died? That is somehow no surprise at all.
“Stevie would have been the first one in to save that girl, even if he didn’t know her.”
This afternoon, Hayden will don his dress blues and serve as a pallbearer at the funeral.
In a corner of the chapel, Steve Burns talked about the son he had always affectionately called “The Boy.”
“We keep rewinding this thing, and I think he’d still do it all over again,” Burns said. “His mom and I taught him to be considerate of others and to put himself last rather than first, but I never thought he’d take it to this.”
Burns, a real-estate broker, has the same blue eyes and buzz cut his son did.
But Burns is quick to note that like most of us, his child was forged by many lives.
“It wasn’t just his mom and I who raised him,” he said. “All our family and friends alike created Stevie. They all get credit for how he grew up.
“I’ll never be half the man my son was,” he said.
I would disagree with him. Burns raised a child who gave his life to save another.
That is one kind of hero.
But the father has choked down his own grief this week to console his son’s friends. He has welcomed a steady stream of them into the house, held them in his arms as they cried, been strong for them.
That, too, is heroism.
We die twice — once at our physical death and again when everyone who knew us in life is gone. Think about what Stevie Burns did at the Little Dolores River. Then think about how long his friends and family will tell his story.
Stevie Burns will outlive us all.
William Porter’s column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1877 or wporter@denverpost.com.
