"You couldn't ask for a better son:" Family of Steve Berger reflects on losing their only son during Las Vegas shooting

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WAUWATOSA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- He was one of the hundreds at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas when the unthinkable happened, a shooter opened fire.

One Wisconsin family lost their only son that night. CBS 58's Garna Mejia recently sat down with Steve Berger's parents to talk about their son, his life, and this tragedy.

As his parents put it, Steve was only 44 and a day on the night he, along with 58 others, lost their lives.

"You couldn't ask for a better son."

Two months after the deadliest mass shooting in US history, a collection of newspaper clippings, pictures, and letters lay on Richard and Mary Berger's dining room table.

"You read about the people in People Magazine, all 58 of them, they are all super people, just there for country western," said Richard Berger, Steve's dad.

Steve Berger's parents say they've received an outpouring of support from across the nation. One person sent a them a cloth after a vigil in California, "And they wrote the names of the 58 people and they hung them on the cross," said Mary Berger, Steve's mother.

Then there are the memories and stories friends have shared about Steve, both here in Wisconsin and Minnesota where he lived since college and was raising his three children. 

"He had a client who had Alzheimer's disease and Steve would go out there and help him pay the bills." It was acts like these that his parents say led to his success at work as a financial advisor.

"Never said anything, never bragged, when we cleaned out his office he had all these plaques."

But, it was his three children whom he was raising as a full-time dad that were his pride and joy. The Bergers and Steve's older sister are now trying to fill his void in their lives. They're living here in Wisconsin now, and his family is sharing Steve's love of sports, in particular, the Packers and the Badgers with his kids. 

"He was a wonderful dad, he really was."

And while Richard and Mary say they don't have an answer for why Steve's life was cut so short.

"And to this day, we have never heard anything, we don't, we will never know what set somebody off."

They take comfort in knowing that he was with his friends, doing what he loved.

"We talked to him the day before, that was his birthday that's why he went, so you know he was doing what he loved to do and that makes us feel good."

Steve's parents say they couldn't be prouder of Steve and the life he lived. His dad went to every one of his college basketball games and says they'll be there now for the grandchildren.


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