Story for the Week
My sister Cindi met her husband Tom in a bar. He was talking to another girl, and she thought he was cute, so she went and sat in his lap. From that point on, they were pretty much inseparable.
I remember when I received the call that my sister was engaged. I was working at college, and I commented (very judgmentally 🤣) that it seemed a little fast since they had been dating less than a year. Little did I know that years later, I would be one to talk, getting married six months after meeting Dennis in a chat room.
Tom had a…rebellious…childhood from the stories he told. He didn’t enjoy school, he ran in some questionable circles, and he got into a lot of trouble with his brothers. But that wasn’t the Tom my sister married. It wasn’t the Tom we knew.
When I got stranded on the Indiana Skyway on my way home from work one day, Tom and my dad drove out to help. There wasn’t anything they could do. The module failed. The car had to be towed. But Tom didn’t hesitate to drop whatever it was he was doing that day and make the drive with my dad.
When Dennis and I got married, Tom flew out to New York to help us drive back. I was recovering from gall bladder surgery performed the day after we got married, so I couldn’t do much. Tom helped pack up the house and the moving truck. Dennis and I each drove one of the cars, and Tom drove the moving truck. After the surgery, I couldn’t make the whole drive from New York to Chicago in one day, so Dennis and I stopped at a rest stop to sleep for a few hours. Tom kept going. He wanted to get home to my sister.
Dennis’s first job after we got married was deliveries for a trucking company. The challenge was that the deliveries were overnight, and he hated being on the road that late by himself. Tom offered to go with him, for no other reason than to keep him company and to share the driving. The job was short-lived, but Tom’s company made a difference to Dennis.
And Tom always knew someone who could help with whatever someone needed. When Dennis had the completely hare-brained idea that he and I could change the spark plugs on his van in the middle of winter and we needed help after he was only able to get one out, Tom called a friend. The van was in my parents’ driveway, and Tom hung out with us while his friend spent several hours working on the van.
My sister will tell you, though, that Tom’s favorite people were his nieces and nephews. Any kids really, but he really loved spoiling his nieces and nephews. When Corinne was small, he and my sister asked what she wanted for her birthday one year. She was in preschool, and I told them to buy her books.
I did not plan to deprive my child of toys, so don’t go criticizing my suggestion. Uncle Tom thought a book was the absolute stupidest gift you could buy for a kid and did not hesitate to make that opinion known. 🤣 I assured him that she would like a book. He still found it questionable, but he and my sister bought Corinne The Big Blue Book of Beginner Books.
When Christmas came around, he still insisted that the book was a horrible gift. I explained to him that Corinne took that book everywhere and we had added The Big Green Book of Beginner Books and The Big Red Book of Beginner Books to her collection. He just shook his head at me and said, “okay.” I heard the “I still don’t believe it” in that “okay,” and that was okay too. Uncle Tom just wasn’t a reader. 😉
As the kids have gotten older, it’s harder to know what they like, so gift cards have become the norm. One thing he could always count on with Corinne, though, was her love of stuffed animals and Squishmallows. She has always been obsessed with Beanie Babies and then moved on to Beanie Boos. (The latter have gigantic eyes.) Even though they come with names on their tags, Corinne always named them something else. One time, we bought her a penguin, which she promptly named Tommy. We think it reminded her of Uncle Tom. She had many penguins in many sizes. All of them were Tommy.
When we went recently to check out the flea market he worked in Indiana, while I was talking to Cindi, Corinne walked in with a bag. I knew she didn’t have any money. Uncle Tom had shown her where the stuffed animals were and told her to pick out whatever she wanted.
We will celebrate Tom’s life this coming Saturday. I know there will be tears…and so many amazing memories like these. He will definitely be missed. 💖
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