Tommy,
I know you’d want me to say something funny to set a funny vibe here. The last thing you’d want is to see many people you’ve known and loved crying about you. You thrived on making people laugh. One of my greatest joys is laughing with you for hours and hours over the most ridiculous stuff. But, I never imagined what life would be like trying to laugh at all our favorite stupidly hilarious things by myself. What do I do with a million inside jokes? Can you imagine me just going on stage to do a stand-up routine sharing one of our inside-jokes after another, only to be met with blank stares? You would probably be laughing hysterically at that, if you were watching me. I’d actually do it for you to make you laugh, even though I’d have terrible stage fright without you.
I do feel like you’re still with us now in some way, your own new way, so if I can somehow make your spirit laugh again some day, that would mean a lot to me, and if you can somehow let me know, that would be awesome too. Even saying that brings tears to my eyes again, which I know, isn’t keeping with the funny vibe, Tom.
I will definitely share with people a lot of what you’ve said and done that has made me laugh. You’re hilarious, one of my favorite comedians of all time. Really I can’t even think of any stand-up comic who makes me laugh like you do. Thank you for treating me like I’m hilarious too. I have no idea how it worked, but your spirit’s sense of humor has been totally in tune with my spirit’s sense of humor since the beginning. I somehow knew exactly how to make you laugh. The very specific flavor of comedy we have had together has been unlike any flavor I have shared with anyone else. When we laughed with other people, that was a whole unique flavor too, each time. I think the flavor of comedy you and I shared together with just each other was like the kind of ice cream only a 4 year old child would love – some sort of cotton candy type of ice cream with all sorts of random odd pieces of candy thrown in, and we were unashamed to get it all over our faces. Oh man… I just heard these lyrics in my head “and I’ll never find that recipe again…. again.”
Speaking of that song, we actually did literally leave a cake out in the rain once. How does almost every single song have a memory of you attached to it in some way? Because you’re full of life, that’s why, and you’ve always been willing to put yourself out there. The real you, at the core of who you are, is full of life.
You always deserved to have your own Web Page, but not under these circumstances. I wish we had created the podcast we talked about. And everything else we assumed we would get to do together. This is unreal to me still. My heart has been on a bad roller coaster ride, dropping over and over again every time it hits me that this is real. It’s going to keep happening for quite some time. Even when there has been time or distance between us, I have always imagined my future with you. Always. Even in the roughest waters we’ve had in our lives. I knew we would still make music together, laugh together, dance, talk for hours, tour more old houses, etc. I had hope we’d still be childlike together even when we were very old. The older we as humans get, the more we become more and more adult, but I knew I’d never lose my child-like wonder with you around. It’s going to be that much harder now to keep it, but as time goes by, I will go out of my way to try to keep that going, okay. I know you’d want that for everyone willing to connect with their inner child; you’d want them to just be an innocent kid at heart again.
I’m not that comfortable writing to you publicly, but I’m doing it because I want other people to feel okay to write to you here too. I want you to forever stay in our present – never in our past. Stay with us in your own way, okay. Help us to remember everything you’ve said that has made us laugh, gave us courage, or made us feel okay just being ourselves.
One of my favorite things about you is that you are genuine and sincere, unafraid to be you. So, my goal is to keep your Web Site as you have always been – genuine and sincere. It would be a lot easier if you were right here with me though. I just imagined you talking like Linus, saying your pumpkin patch would be the most sincere. I will think of you every time I watch Charlie Brown at Halloween, Tommy.
Annnnd now I’m crying again. You know I won’t be thinking of you just over Halloween. It will be every day, like it always has. I have had so many things I have wanted to tell you, Tommy. I will continue writing you that other letter I have been writing you.
I started this new letter to you as a shorter, smaller one for your Web Site. But, typical to us, I can’t stop this conversation either.
How about this. I will try to wrap this up so I can start new ones in the future and talk about all your talents and amazing things you’ve created, and about many wonderful memories, etc. I have seen so many of the awesome things your friends have shared on Facebook and it warms my heart to see all the lives you’ve touched – even sweet brief encounters. You’ve always been so humble that it wouldn’t have occurred to you to share any of those awesome experiences on your Facebook page yourself. You would never even utter a “humblebrag”. You know your talents, no doubt about that. But, you never shared any stories for the sake of bragging about them. You were just sharing when you shared. I thank all of your family and friends for sharing about you too. It has brought sprinkles of joy to my heart, and I know it must do the same for others. I can just imagine Tommy adding sprinkles to cupcakes now and handing them out to each of us. Lots of colorful sprinkles. A total razzle dazzle of sprinkles.
Tommy, I dedicate this Web Site to you with so much love and gratitude. Martin helped pull this together as fast as possible because he knows how much you mean to me and how much I wanted to keep your spirit alive.
You are so very, very loved. My love for you is bigger than the Titanic and the Mauritania combined. I can just imagine you naming off other ships right now. Yes, those too! All of them! But, I don’t want to go into too tooo much of that right now because you already know my heart. Now I will quote Titanic for you again, “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.”
I know your Mother and Dave’s love for you is as big and wide as the ocean and beyond, and they are going through so much pain right now, so please look after them. Please keep finding ways to bring them the pure joy and laughter you’ve brought into their lives since the day you were born. Your bond with them will forever be unbreakable. Now I just heard you again in my mind saying “unsinkable”. Everything goes back to Titanic. Your love for them truly is unsinkable. It’s the real deal.
Thank you to all of Tommy’s family and friends and anybody who has ever treated him with kindness, compassion, or love. Thank you to everybody who has ever cared for him and looked out for him. You know who you are, Tommy knows who you are, and I have no doubt in my mind Tommy would be thanking you right now if he could. I hope he finds his own ways to shine his pure love beams down on you. Saying that just now made my fingers shake while typing because that’s how I imagine him in this moment – pure beams of love.
With Eternal Love to You Tommy,
Mary XOXO
The most beautiful and touching sharing of memories of Tom. Thank for the love you have shared.
Thank You Too, Stephanie. I truly appreciate that. That means a lot to me.
Mary, nobody could have said it better. Thank you so much
Thank you so much too, Dave. Everything you’ve written about Tom so far would make him proud.
In the span of years that Tommy and I were close he spoke so highly of you Mary. You were one of his favorites. Thank you for putting this together. I have some fun 90’s pics to upload. As sad as I am, thinking of the things he said or our ‘situations’ make me laugh and they will forever.
Nyre, That means so much to me. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. It touches me deeply. I remember hearing your name from him very often, and always with excitement! I was actually going to comment to you on his Facebook page, but didn’t get to do it yet because I still have some catching up to do over there. I wanted to tell you how much I remembered hearing your name, and I know he had a lot of fun with you & liked you a lot. Did you meet him when he moved to Austin or before he moved there? I feel like he met you in Austin. I know for sure your name came up often then & I remember him laughing about stuff, but I can’t remember any of the stories right now – shoot!
Looking back, now I am wondering how he & I kept in touch when he moved to Austin, and I moved to New Orleans because I remember us still talking a lot. It must have been long distance phone calls, in which I’m sure we had to worry about the time. Even so, I heard stories about fun times you guys had! As soon as I saw your name on his Facebook page, I thought “It’s Nyre!” like I knew you.
I look forward to your sharing of fun memories or photos over time. Even if something comes to you months down the road, please come back and share.
My friend Amy and I met Tommy and James one late night at Proteus, the club we always went to in Austin in 1994. Tommy ended up driving us around 6th street in his Le Baron with the top “carriage style” (sticking straight up) and blasting “ice cream truck” music. We all became fast friends and may have even started hanging out the next day. He was living with Dan at that point. I’ll post a few pictures during that time period today.
Nyre,
Proteus was instantly familiar to me when I read your post. I remember him talking about going to Proteus. The “carriage style” Le Baron ride is so funny, especially with the ice cream truck music. I think he got that car when he moved to Austin, because he had a different convertible (a Mustang) when he lived in Dallas, but I remember him driving a different convertible in his Austin years.
Some of my favorite memories of my young years were in the car with Tommy. I’ll probably have to write a whole post about car memories some time. I don’t think we ever drove “carriage style” though – ha! I love the visual of that!
One time though, we did come out of a club at the end of the night when everyone was leaving and it was pouring down rain. Just for laughs, Tommy took the top down on his convertible and slowly drove us through the parking lot, then slowly down the street away from the club in POURING rain with music blasting. It was pouring buckets, but he was willing to do it for the laughs. It worked; we were laughing hysterically at how insane it was. He did put the top back up when we were a couple blocks away though and we were soaking at that point.
Back to Austin… I remember him telling me one day he accidentally turned and went the wrong way down a 1-way street and had to stop because he nearly ran into another car. He realized it was Governor Ann Richards that he almost ran into. Since then, whenever I saw anything about Ann Richards, I think of that story. Her name doesn’t come up much these days, but she’ll always remind me of Tommy.
I should add… he was actually driving seriously that particular time, so he was embarrassed about it. 🙂