Segovia Andrew Bader, BHS 1970

Segovia Andrew Bader, BHS 1970

Steven Andrew Bader was born May 25, 1952. He grew up on Andover Dr. in Burbank, middle son of Dr. Stan Bader and Ruth Bader. He attended Thomas Jefferson, John Muir, and Burbank High graduating in 1970. He was a professional musician all of his adult life, and after becoming an adult he legally changed his first name to 'Segovia', after the famous Spanish guitarist, Andreas Segovia. He had played professionally with groups all over the world on musical tours for decades.

For many years his home base has been San Rafael, CA. Over the many years he had accumulated a solid 13 years of travelling to 101 different countries in all parts of the world. His last extended trip was a little over one year ago. Many of us have received his "travel logs" from him while he was on his trips over the years. He started out in the second grade and in Cub Scouts in 1959! Segovia Bader passed away June 2, 2010, just one week and two days after his birthday on May 25. He leaves an adult daughter and an adult son, his mother, Ruth, of Burbank, his older brother, Mitch, his younger brother, Kenny, and their families.

Segovia had a melanoma on his leg and had surgery about a year ago to remove it. His doctors thought at that time that "they got it all", but unfortunately that was not the case. Later the melanoma spread to his chest. Ultimately melanoma is what caused his death.

He did not tell many of us who had recently heard from him that he was so ill. Several of you wrote about how shocked you are, since you also had just heard from him in the last week or so. Segovia's family and friends had a huge birthday party for him on his birthday last week. Now so soon after that he is to be cremated and there will be a memorial service for him in the Burbank area, but plans have not been determined yet as to any details.

Steve left a letter for his brother to post on his Facebook page after his passing:

Here is a letter from Segovia to his friends...My name is Mitch Bader and Segovia was my brother. As you may or may not know, Segovia passed away peacefully in his sleep on June 2nd after losing his brave battle with cancer.

He asked that Kenny, our brother, and I send this to his friends after his death. For those of you who knew him well, you may find humor that even in death he's providing you with reading material.

My Dear Friends........... If you are receiving this letter than it looks like I have some very sad news for you. The letter is being sent out by my brother Mitch. That is because I am no longer with you on the earth to do the sending myself. Who would ever have thought that it would happen like this. Attacked by a tiger in Africa, killed by bandits in Central America, falling from a mountain top in Nepal. Ah, there were so many dramatic ways that I could have been taken from you. But alas, the reaper came from within rather than from without.

As many of you know I had a run in with a melanoma on my knee back in March of 2008. Well with some surgery we thought we had eradicated my body of the melanoma. But a follow-up chest x-ray 1 ½ years later showed different. There was something there. Well follow up CT scans, PET CT scans and a brain MRI revealed that I had cancer in my lungs and brain. By the time I found this out it was stage IV Metastatic Melanoma. It was a truly unpleasant prognosis with very slim chances for survival.

As I write this I am not sure if I ever decided to share what was going on with me with the world. I told my family and a few close friends so I had plenty of support. But I just didn’t want to be “that guy” who everyone felt bad about. Who people weren’t sure about what to say to or how to act around. That was never my style. And I was used to holding things inside because often times in my travels there wasn’t really anyone to open up to about things. The truth of the matter was that for the longest time I was totally asymptomatic and even felt great while on the chemotherapy.

I was very positive about the whole thing, as catastrophic as it was to my life, and so long as that was the case I wanted to remain my old positive jolly self in all that I did. I did not want to bring pain and sadness to the party!! I won’t go into the whole long story here about how it all went down because of course I kept a journal (a final Travel Log) throughout the whole experience and if you are receiving this then you are on the list to receive that as well. My brother should be sending it out soon.

One thing that is important for ALL of you to keep in mind is how lucky and blessed I have always been. Few have had a life quite like mine. Sure it was cut shorter than I would have liked but isn’t it about quality more than quantity? Rather than feel bad about it all, please rejoice in knowing that I lived more in my 57 years than most people could live in 10 lifetimes!! No, I wasn’t “ready”” to go but I am certainly in no position to complain.

How many people reach the end of their lives with an empty “Bucket List?! Of course there are a few things that I would like to have stuck around to enjoy like more time with my family and friends. But there are no, “If I’d only had the chance to do this or go there” to put on my list. Maybe I knew that this was all coming so I somehow sensed that I had better get out and do it all while I could? Whatever it was, I managed to have great fortune.

A successful musician, a worldtraveler, a Bohemian, a 48 year old retiree, a father of two incredible children. I always managed to live my life outside of the mainstream. It was something that I set out to do in high school and something that I certainly managed to accomplish.

One more wonderful thing is that I leave the world with no secrets and no unresolved turmoil between myself and any other. There is nothing that I wish that I had had the chance to patch up or say “I am sorry” about. I do want to say here though that my life was incredibly full and rich but that it was all of you who were the gold that sat in the pot at the end of my rainbow life.

One of my dying wishes is that you all rejoice in my life rather than mourn my passing. Thank you. I send my love eternal. Peace……….Segovia

…………I TRAVEL THEREFORE I AM………….

PS......If anyone needs to communicate with my brothers Kenny or Mitch, please use this email address: mitchbader@yahoo.com If you want to communicate with me, just look up at the moon. I plan on spending a lot of time there.