A year after Von Maur deaths, son searches for solutions

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BY CINDY LANGE-KUBICK / Lincoln Journal Star

A college junior sits in a Lincoln middle school library Wednesday, helping a seventh-grader write a letter to his dad.

“I now it’s a little late but I just wanted to say Happy Birthday!!! And Merry Christmas, too...”

When the letter is finished — “Love, Your Son, Jaimee” — Steve Scharf shows the boy how to address an envelope, how to fold the letter in thirds so it fits inside.

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Jamiee (left) and TeamMate mentor Steve Scharf talk smack over a game of checkers at Dawes Elementary Scharf's father, Gary, was killed in the Von Maur shootings at the Westroads Mall a year ago. (William Lauer)

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“You know the format? Top, middle, bottom.”

Steve’s dad died a year ago. His name was Gary. He was 48, a salesman with sandy blond hair and dimples like his only son’s.

Steve was 19 then. The same age as the young man who walked into a Von Maur store in Omaha and started shooting, killing eight people and then himself.

That day, Gary was shopping for dress shirts before heading to the airport for a business trip. He was on the second floor of the store. He dialed 911 when he heard the rifle blasts from the floor above.

Six months later, Father’s Day approaching, Steve wrote an essay. He wrote about the grown-up relationship he and his father had begun embarking upon.

He wrote about their lunch the day before the shooting. The call they shared seven minutes before the first shots. The call that ended with the words “I love you.” And “I love you, too.”

He wrote: If you were me, you wouldn't want to think about the way Dad died. You would try to forget the crime scene...

His dad was buried on a wintry December day, out west in Curtis near the farm where he was raised. The place he would take his son to ride motorcycles and shoot blue rock and visit family.

Steve will go to Omaha on Friday morning to the private breakfast for families of victims. His relatives want him to be there. But he doesn’t go to malls anymore. He hasn’t gone back to Braeda, where he and his dad ate the day before he died.

He keeps the photo of the two of them taken that day in the closet.

“I can’t constantly be reminding myself anymore or I won’t be able to function.”

And then he’s reminded, whether he wants to be or not.

He’ll meet someone new and they will look at him funny. Scharf? How do I know that name?

Or someone he hasn’t seen for a while will ask how he’s doing. He knows what they mean: How’s it going without your dad?

Or a commercial will flash on TV — a dad and his kid. Or he’ll have a dream. Or a decision to make and the thought that still follows, natural as a heartbeat. I should ask Dad about this...

“We were in a new place in our relationship. He understood I was no longer a kid.”

The son pauses over a cup of coffee.

“So that’s really too bad.”

Gary’s memorial money went to TeamMates, the mentoring organization started by Tom Osborne, former football coach and politician Steve’s dad admired.

Steve and his family figured the best way to fight violence was with compassion and community.

Steve is still trying to do that. He’s a junior in college now. A journalism major, thinking about the foreign service some day, or law school, who knows right now? He’s leaving his options open.

He’s been Jaimee’s TeamMate since March.

They are a good match. Steve comes to Dawes once a week and helps Jaimee with school stuff — staying organized, keeping motivated. They play checkers. They’re buddies.

If you were me, you could feel like doing nothing, and only hope nothing like this happens in our community again. Or, in my shoes, you could realize the first step is a small one. Your actions make a difference. You can stop pretending you're powerless to change our community...

A year after losing his father, the son believes that more than ever. He collects quotes, bits of inspiration for himself, for politicians who don’t seem to move fast enough or with enough resolve.

“The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.” — Hubert H. Humphrey.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” — Dr. Seuss.

“He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” — Abraham Lincoln.

He talks about violence. 

Columbine. Virginia Tech. Von Maur. Why do we keep calling these shootings random?

“How many people have to get shot in the face and die before people can get some mental health help?”

He notices the way people talk.  “I could kill you.” “That guy should be shot.”

Maybe people could think about what they’re saying before they say it.

Maybe Nebraska could offer state employees time off to mentor kids, he says. Maybe they could start some serious mental health reform.

Wednesday, Steve’s mom Lynn Ann is in the middle school library, too.

She’s in training, she jokes. Steve leaves in January to study in Argentina for a semester.

She watches her son play checkers with his TeamMate, encouraging him to keep up with his social studies, telling him cool stories about history.

You know I’m taking over, right? she asks Jaimee. “We’re going to be OK, right?”

The blond boy nods.

“Yeah, but I don’t want Steve to go.”

“I don’t either,” Steve’s mother says.

If you were me, you wouldn't want to talk about Dad's death; you wouldn't want to relive it with every new stranger you meet, and every old friend you run into...

I’ll be back, Steve says, studying a move on the checkerboard.

But it will be good to get away. Good to be in a place where people don’t look at him with a question in their eyes.

A relief to not have to answer.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.