Friday, Dec. 10, 2004 | 3:16 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
December 11 - 12, 2004
A small and bare Christmas tree stands in memory of 8-year-old Justyne Steffee at a neighborhood park where Revere Street meets Craig Creek Avenue in North Las Vegas, southeast of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Craig Road.
There are wooden crosses, flower wreaths and lace angels bearing the child's name nearby, but the tree is starkly free of ornamentation.
"The Christmas tree with no ornaments is kind of my way of saying my daughter doesn't get a Christmas this year," Nicole Steffee said.
Standing beside her at the display her husband, Jeffrey Steffee, watched a car speed by. He shook his head and said, "It's aggravating, incredibly aggravating."
Justyne was hit by a speeding car in May as she tried to cross the street on her bike. She was going from the park to her North Las Vegas home. She fell into a coma and died two weeks later without regaining consciousness.
More than six months later, with the trial of the driver coming up, the Steffee family continues to try to deal with their loss every day.
Nicole Steffee, 28, has a doctorate in psychology. She talks of grief with a mother's pain and a clinician's analytical eye.
"Through grief you can do the most amazing things if you focus it properly," she said.
She focused hers in effecting change. She became politically active and ambitious and was appointed a traffic and parking commissioner for North Las Vegas. She helped improve the intersection where Justyne was hit through the addition of crosswalks, neon signs and a median, perhaps a better memorial to her daughter than the one on the corner.
Nicole Steffee said her nightmare is that another child will be lost as Justyne was, so she works also to protect her twin 4-year-old boys, Nicolas and Zachary.
Still, she said, it's hard.
"We cry weekly, I'd say daily, about Justyne in our own private arena," Nicole Steffee said.
The hardest aspect, she said, is when people ask how many children she has. "I say I have two here and one in heaven."
That her daughter's heart and liver went to save the lives of other children is some comfort, she said.
Jeffrey Steffee shares his wife's desire to at least try to prevent another family from going through similar pain.
"You got to do something to change something rather than just sitting back and crying and whining," he said, "because it's ridiculous that it happens so much."
The Navy veteran and trained electrician often tries to take his mind off his family's loss by working on his 1986 Nissan 300ZX. He plans to take the car to the drag strip.
Reminders of Justyne are everywhere in the Steffee home. Portraits of her line the foyer wall, and nearby are a dozen stuffed animals -- fur matted with mud and candle wax -- that the family took from the memorial.
A wooden cross also leans against the wall, but Nicole Steffee said Justyne's death made her question how God would allow a child to suffer so.
When asked his thoughts, Jeffrey Steffee said, "I've always taken religion my own way. I believe in God and everything like that, it's just ..." He left the sentence unfinished.
Around the corner was Justyne's old room. The family has left it the way she left it and keeps it private. The twins, Nicole Steffee said, go there when they miss their sister because they don't yet understand exactly where she's gone.
"My sons really pulled me through all this. They're two goofy little accident-prone children," Nicole Steffee said.
She said that Thanksgiving without Justyne was tough but that she celebrated for the twins and that they're also her main motivation for celebrating Christmas.
Soon after Christmas, on Jan. 18, Kimberly Bunch goes to trial. Bunch, 30, is the driver who hit Justyne and is currently on house arrest. Police reported that Bunch tested positive for methamphetamines and marijuana after the accident and may have been going as much as 27 mph over the 35 mph limit.
The Steffees are not looking forward to the trial.
"We could just sort of put one very nasty year behind us," Jeffrey Steffee said.
When the conversation returns to Justyne -- her life rather than her death -- the memories are more pleasant.
Nicole Steffee describes Justyne as a bright, bubbly and independent girl with just a bit of sass. She said Justyne would dance around the house in a tutu and wanted to be a veterinarian. She was a child who knew what she liked -- the color purple and sandwiches made with "a spoonful of jelly and peanut butter to choke you," her mother said.
Nicole Steffee keeps a photo album of Justyne in the master bedroom. There are pictures of Justyne celebrating a birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's and playing a favorite game with her father, he tossing her in the air.
"I used to be into photography. I'm lucky enough to have just tons of pictures of Justyne," Nicole Steffee said as she picked up the album. It was only half full.
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