It was standing room only yesterday at Green Acres. So many people loved Steve Wiley, and they knew him as many things — record store guy, baseball coach, unconventional philospher.

I knew him as Tatum’s dad.

I’m sure Steve had an opinion of what it’s like to have a kid with Down syndrome, though as far as I recall we never had that talk. His wife Beth and I sure have, during hours together at dance class, cheer practice and one memorable puberty seminar. What I’ll remember about Steve is the privilege of watching him as a parent.

If you’re friends with Steve on Facebook, go back through his timeline and watch the videos he made and posted of Tatum’s Special Olympics events. My favorite is from her first swim meet in 2011; I believe she was 9. I can’t figure out how to link to the video but here’s what Steve wrote when he posted it.

Tatum joins her brothers as the third competitive athlete in the house with her first Special Olympics swim meet.

We weren’t sure how she’d hold up to the pressure and the noise, but as you can see, she was a champ.

Our boys have provided some great sporting moments in our life… but as much as I loved Ben’s first homer, or Jonah’s first pick-six, nothing can compare to the absolute joy we felt yesterday watching Tatum get ALL the attention.

A year ago, she was still barely swimming, now she is a competitor. Obviously, you can tell by my cheering on the video, we’re pretty proud.

She’s pretty proud too. She’s already watched this video about twelve times.

Sophie watched that video at least a dozen times, as well. Me, too. And I watched it again today, though it was hard this time.

Sophie and Tatum have been classmates since kindergarten. This fall, they went off to junior high together. Sophie still refuses to join the swim team, but the two girls have been together for years not only in school but on Special Olympics track and cheer teams.

As they say, it takes a village, and Steve was a huge part of ours.

Just this past October, it was Steve who made a call to school administrators to lobby to get both girls onto the junior high cheer squad. They’d each been promised spots in the spring, but come fall there was a miscommunication and now both families were stuck in an awkward situation. Steve, who knew the vice principal in charge of sports from his years of working with his older sons’ baseball teams, stepped in — in a way none of the rest of us could have.

 “Steve told them it can be tricky sometimes asking for special treatment and wanting inclusion all at the same time but some situations make sense and this is one of those situations,” Beth emailed me later. “They said the girls would be good to go.”

A few weeks later, Steve and I stood outside a school gym, waiting to see the girls cheer, and I admitted it was my very first school basketball game. He was incredulous. I haughtily asked him how many speech and debate tournaments he’d been to and he laughed in my face. I laughed, too, and had to admit that no, it wasn’t the same thing.

Our team lost miserably. I’m not sure any of us noticed — even Steve. We four parents were fixated on our two girls as they took their places in the middle of the line-up and shook their pom poms, about as fully included as I’ve ever seen them. It was so worth that call, and I’ll always be grateful to Steve.

“I’ve never seen so many tee shirts at a funeral,” I whispered to Ray yesterday, as we crammed into the back of the service. Up front, there was one little girl in a beautiful magenta party dress and pretty black shoes. Afterward, in the front yard of her house, she crossed the monkey bars again and again, while groups of big boys shot hoops in the driveway.

I’m not sure Tatum knows what yesterday meant. To be honest, I’m not sure any of us do.

Years ago, when he still had a brick and mortar store, Steve  hosted a fundraiser called Hoodstock, a music festival featuring live bands and upcycled albums painted by the kids at Tatum and Sophie’s school. Every year, we’d all race over to buy our kids’ albums; it was so neat to see them up on the walls of a real record store. Steve Wiley made parenthood cool.

Sophie’s records are hanging on her bedroom wall. I’ll never look at them the same.