It seemed to me like Steve got to that place he was referring to when he last talked to his wife.

> He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.

It's not exactly a "place", but you can only do so much with words.

Imagine fully realizing that you're one with the Universe ... and then your mind shuts off, your body dies, there is no more action, what you where is no more, there is only silence. The end.

But that's a good thing!

"Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."

I assumed the "Oh wow"s referred to each of those people.

    O I dye Horatio:
    The potent poyson quite ore-crowes my spirit,
    I cannot liue to heare the Newes from England,
    But I do prophesie th'election lights
    On Fortinbras, he ha's my dying voyce,
    So tell him with the occurrents more and lesse,
    Which haue solicited. The rest is silence. O, o, o, o.

I don't like the emphasis on "last words" anyway. When I'm dying (and probably not especially lucid), I don't want to have to cope with the pressure that any set of words could be my last and hence I'd better make 'em good. I think we should let everyone record their official last words ahead of time, just so there's one less thing to worry about when you're actually dying.