I described Steve Jobs to someone yesterday as having had the most influence on my life of someone I’d never met. I think that’s fair to say, considering all of the various parts of my life that have been touched by his work, starting back in the early ’80s when we got our first Apple IIe from Pictures, Inc. in Anchorage, and continuing up to now, as I watch Grace master the “slide to unlock” function on the iPhone, with which we document her life and FaceTime with her grandparents.

The Apple IIgs unboxing in our family room, sometime in 1986

I never met the man, never got an email from him, and missed seeing him at the Oscars last year. The only time I saw him in person was at the MacWorld Expo in New York in 2000 – not one of the really legendary ones, but the year between the iBook and iTunes, where he introduced the Cube – and that was from the very, very back of the room. I don’t remember much from the event, but it was nice to be surrounded by like-minded Apple folks. While things were beginning to look up, it was still pre-iPod, Apple was still a niche product, and those of us who had been users and supporters since the good days before the dark days still felt a little embattled.

It’s hard to properly calculate the impact that Steve’s ideas, his sensibilities, and his passion for what he and his colleagues made have had on my life, from my work and my hobbies to the way I interact with my family and friends and the way I document my life. How would we have lived our lives differently if he hadn’t come along and done what he did? His death leaves a huge void, and I can only wonder what else he might have come up with, how else he might have contributed to making our lives a little more joyful, a little more magical, but his unique genius will live on through the legacy of the things he made and the things he made possible.