In Memoriam

My friend Tom died last night. He was the only male in our a cappella foursome, Eclectricity. He did almost all of our arrangements. He was a neat guy and I will miss him.

Tom's son died in early adolescence from muscular dystrophy and apparently that pretty much caused the break-up of his first marriage. But he married the only wife I've known, Jane, and she is one of the most remarkable women I'll ever meet. Their age difference is about the same as the gap between Bruce and me and we had interesting conversations about that. Both of us found so much better a man the second time around. And Tom adored her, couldn't have functioned without her. She saw him through to the end. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1998, I think, and had surgery. This was about 6 mos.-1 year before it was pronounced that most prostate cancers should just be left alone. Maybe things would be different if he'd gone to the doctor a year later; who knows. Tom had trouble from then on: bad after-effects from the surgery, the need for hormone treatments (we all complained about hot flashes together!), etc. About 3 yrs. ago Jane made one statement that the cancer had metastasized to his bones, and then we didn't hear about it at all. I guess he told Rachelle that denial could work wonders!

Tom & Jane moved to Florida, selling their beautiful house here, probably at a loss, and lived there for a year or two. But Jane hated it and they moved back here, in a smaller house--just as lovely. Tom had loved the personnel at the Moffitt Cancer Center at USF in Tampa, but transferred his treatment, which was apparently a little different from what was offered here, to the cancer center in Plattsburgh. And about six months ago he just got tired of it. He said he wanted to feel good once in awhile, instead of trying to survive the chemo and then getting "vacations" from it. So he said he'd let it go.

It went pretty quickly. He broke his neck, and I think that had already happened when Eclectricity got together for a group dinner in January. Tom and Jane were on the plane I was on in March when I returned from Tampa to Plattsburgh after Courtney was born; they had gone to visit Jane's father & stepmother. Jane said they'd spent the entire visit in the hospital because Tom was not doing too well. When the got on the plane to come home, Tom's broken neck disturbed the flight's captain and he kicked them off! Jane said she told that arrogant @*#&ole that she wouldn't risk her husband's well being but the idjit was adamant and they had to get off the plane. T(hey flew back the next day on a different airline.) It seemed to me that it went very quickly after that.

Eclectricity got together a few times at his house: about a month ago he could sort of sing with us, three weeks ago he made and effort but mostly listened, two weeks ago we sang around him, last week we sang to him, and yesterday in the hospital we sang to him again. I'm really glad we did that. Rachelle and Eileen, the other two Eclectricity women, said all the right stuff to him, I'm sure. I pretty much didn't say anything. He was completely oblivious, on a steady morphine drip to quell excruciating pain. But I didn't say anything. I wish I had.

Tom was funny. And he was a good friend. As Jane said, he was in love with all three of the Electricity women. I think he had adult ADD (not joking here) and it took awhile to get used to the fact that he started his sentences about 5 times before he completed them. His brain was already on to the next idea before his mouth could get out the first one. He could be a slave-driver about the music. But he had near-perfect pitch. He both hated and loved performing, and we women used to worry if he'd make it through any one number. But he always did, and I don't think the audience had a clue about nervousness. Our performances were pretty doggoned professional, I think. And fun. We rehearsed every week, almost always at Tom's, starting with a cup of tea (that was because of my addiction) and all our news. Sometimes it was hard to get to the singing part! But we did sing, and practiced and practiced and practiced. His beautiful baby grand piano got a workout, but mostly we sat around the kitchen table and sang. We have hand-written music for about 90% of what we sang, hand-written by Tom. He sang in Barbershoppers and he had another quartet--2 women and 2 men. But we three women were convinced he loved Eclectricity best.

He looked younger than he was and he had that beautiful, luxurious hair. When he lost it through chemo we all waited for it to grow back--he looked like Daddy Warbucks without it. And then when it did grow back there wasn't any gray in it still! Yesterday his crew cut was slicked down a little on his forehead and he looked like a little boy. An no wrinkles at 68.

So here's to Tom. Eclectricity was fabulous fun and I'll miss the singing tremendously. But mostly I'll miss Tom.