Greenwood, NYC

Yesterday Tara and I couldn't visit Mt. Greenwood Cemetery in Chicago, so we instead went to Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. There we found a beautifully weathered gravestone that no longer bears traces of a name, a date, or anything else. Without much stretching of the imagination it felt like a very good site to reflect, honor Tom, and shove a note under the wobbly part of the stone. We feel sure the 19th-century chap wouldn't mind.

p.s. If any New Yorkers want to find this spot, let me know. It's a beautiful historic cemetery and a really nice, shady spot.

Tom's 25th Birthday

Tom's 25th birthday was a surprise at the Yankees/White Sox game organized by Patrick. But the game was the weekend after his birthday and Tom seemed to think we had all forgotten to celebrate his birthday. Last minute we invited a few people over on his actual birthday (Tuesday, I think). Saverio and Elena brought a pinata shaped like a basketball. We didn't have enough space to safely swing at the pinata blindfolded. After some discussion Tom just started punching the pinata. The whole party was doubled over. He kept punching after the pinata fell to the ground.

A bunch of short thoughts

I found an old document full of short silly memories. Here are some:

One of the first times we went out to dinner just the two of us, Tom suggested we choose dessert based on the number of times the word chocolate appeared in the description. I believe my thought was "Hmm, I think I should keep this guy around for awhile."

Tom hadn't been to Disney since he was 8 or 9 or so. I took him over a summer in college. He turned into a little kid and absolutely had to meet Mickey. We waited in line for 30 minutes to meet Mickey. It was adorable.

Speaking of adorable, Tom found this picture of an overweight hedgehog who had to be put on a diet. He called the picture adorable - repeatedly - and sent it out to a ton of people. I couldn't get over the fact that he kept using the word adorable.











When I had a rotten, rotten, 3-month cold junior year of college (renamed the Krista plague) Tom helped me walk across campus in the middle of the night to get a final paper under the professor's door before the morning deadline. He didn't mind my frequent rest breaks.

Anytime we went to The Loop (campus restaurant) Tom would ask if I was getting a milkshake with that gleam in his eye. He never had to order one - he just stole half of mine.

Tom only ate about five bites out of an apple. Then he thought it was too close to the core. I got to eat the other 60% of his apples.

Tom (and someone) organized a fortified wine tasting in college...

We went to Salt Lake City over one spring break. Tom was really really excited to go to the genealogy library and did a ton of research on his family.

Tom's obsession with little internet flash games continued, but he played a lot of console games too. He'd ask me if I wanted to play video games with him. This meant "do you want to watch while I play?" As strange as it seems, I loved it. In the Star Wars games my role was to try to convince him to do the light-side thing at all times.

Junior year of college Tom and I think Kevin and Emon played a ridiculous amount of a car racing game. After their thumbs started to go numb, they rigged up a way to armor their car enough that they could weigh down the controller and walk away - and still win long long races.

Tom's voicemail code in college was the first 6 or 7 digits of Pi.

We went to a US Open match in 2007 that Roger Federer won. Federer signed three balls and hit them into the crowd. Tom caught one. He swore Roger looked straight at him before he hit the ball.

Tom didn't much like pancakes, but loved toast. Somehow at a restaurant with all-you-can-eat pancakes, he convinced the waitress and a bunch of fraternity brothers to do all-you-can-eat toast instead - and negotiated the price. No one felt well afterwards.

I'm on somewhat of a lifetime quest for the perfect watch. Nothing is quite right and I'd rather have no watch than the wrong watch. For Christmas 2006 Tom bought me a watch. It was one of the bravest things he ever did.

Tom could do neat yo-yo tricks.

Tom and my brother were both so gleeful on Tom's first vacation with my family when they both suddenly realized that the other knew exactly how to torture me too. They really enjoyed sitting back and watching the other work - then trading off. Stuck in the middle of the backseat I think I asked to be left behind in Lillehammer.

I bought Tom two linen shirts for our honeymoon and gave them to him a couple months early. He tried so hard not to get pen on those shirts until after the honeymoon. I think he succeeded. That's saying something.

Tom had pretty old golf clubs, but refused to get new ones unless he became a better golfer.

Tom disliked OXO products. No apparent reason, but felt strongly enough that he didn't want us to buy them for anyone else either.

Tom claimed not to know how to use a microwave (grew up without one) and put me in charge of all microwaving.

Tom once declared me the letter-writing wing of the relationship. He then assigned me a bunch of other wings of the relationship. When I finally interrupted to ask what wing of the relationship he was, he replied, "We're like Hamas. I'm the military wing."

When the chocolate syrup was almost empty Tom would pour milk in, shake it up, and drink the chocolate milk out of the syrup bottle.

From our maid of honor Kim

Two stories from Kim:

Tom contacted me via computer when he was ring shopping for Krista's engagement ring online. All he knew in advance was that she wanted to get engaged and she would want a ring. After IM'ing for a bit, I convinced him that I could call Krista and find out everything he would need to know about what kind of ring she would want. While Tom was on the computer, I gave Krista a call. The beautiful thing was that I, too, was hoping to get engaged sometime soon. Talking about what kind of rings we would both want was a piece of cake!! It was all pretty comical... I would ask Krista, "So, I wonder when I'm going to figure out my ring size. Do you remember yours from our high school rings?" She would answer... then I would type the answer to Tom. Then I would say things like, "I wonder what kind of metal Jason will pick out for our wedding bands. What kind would you want?" (Typing to Tom- "yellow gold band.") "I don't know what kind of cuts I like. How about you, Krista?" (Typing to Tom- "she DOES NOT want heart or pear-shaped. She likes round!") By the end of the conversation, Tom had the perfect ring picked out for Krista. One day on a mountain top, Tom presented her with a beautiful ring. :) I was so honored for Tom to ask for my help and in turn be a small part of that special moment.

Krista and Tom came over to see Jason & I just after our first Thanksgiving as a married couple in our new house. I had never built a gingerbread house before, so we decided it would be fun to construct one as a group! Needless to say, Tom, Krista, & I made sure that everything was very symmetrical and perfectly spaced out. (We are all first-born children in our families, so this came naturally to us.) Jason did his best to throw off some of the color combinations of our candy on the roof of the gingerbread house... and he did a lovely job decorating the front yard of the house (skating rink & all)! About 40 minutes later, we ended up with a candy-guy wearing what we thought looked like a hazmat suit holding a soda! We decided that we needed to take a group picture to celebrate my first gingerbread experience, but Tom kept blinking in every shot! It took about 7 pictures (some taken with and others taken without the flash) before we got the perfect shot. To this day, it is one of my favorite pictures ever.

From my cousin Mandy

Two stories from my (Krista's) cousin Mandy:

The first time I met Tom was the weekend of our wedding in December 2002, which also happened to be his first introduction to Krista's mom's side clan. It was fun to see how quickly he fit in and to notice how smitten he was about our beloved Krista. And, I don't know why, but I also remember that he gave Noel and I a separate gift (I just assumed he would sign the card with Krista's family). It was beautifully wrapped from Crate & Barrel with a gift receipt taped just so. He even included a sweet note in the card. I remember thinking, "Wow, this guy is a class act!" That first impression proved true time and time again.

Krista's mom's side will never forget the induction of its 50th member! First, it was a blast that after all the years of Matty's trash-talking about the highly sought family member #5-0, his new brother-in-law snagged the honor (much easier than Matt figuring out how to adopt a child as a jobless college student...). Second, it was equally thrilling that Matty happened to be (1) in the country and (2) on a low key schedule for the week before the wedding. The perfect recipe for Matt's creativity to blossom. I can honestly say I have yet to see a larger paper mache structure. Quite an impressive 5-0. And, thinking about the "tres amigos" attempt to subtely transport the structure in a boat across your parents' lake for their "surprise" unveiling still makes me smile. I'm sure Tom didn't get all the hype and, understandably, considered us all a bit childish, but he never let on. He just joined our "fun" and played along graciously, as always.














I (Krista) added photos to explain. My brother and cousins constructed a giant paper mache 50 to celebrate Tom becoming the 50th member of the family. It was presented to him at a party two nights before our wedding. He enjoyed the hype, I think. To prove it I've also posted a picture of Tom with the fish - another goofy tradition from my mom's family.

Evidence of Joe's story

Tom kept this. I found it recently looking in his files for something else.

Of bunny hops and wrestling matches

As Brian mentioned, Tom when through a phase where, at the end of a night with a few drinks, he'd decide to hop around like a bunny. He'd get this twinkle in his eye and a wide, mischievous grin, pull his hands in front of him so they hung like paws, and start bouncing on both legs, slowly at first and then getting faster and higher with each hop. Unfortunately, his balance by this point was generally slightly off and he had enough bulk that it became dangerous to be in his unpredictable path; the effect was rather like a loose wrecking ball wearing an Energizer bunny costume. Chapter room furniture and bystanders' feet will never be the same. And all the while, Tom's grin grew wider and wider, and it was clear that he thought this was hillarious -- and it was, as long as he didn't land on your big toe.

He also liked wrestling with people in those situations; Brian was always able to hold his own in those matchups, but others like Greg weren't always so lucky and would sometimes end up pinned beneath him till others hopped into the match and collectively overpowered Tom. But Tom was always in control, and though he might well be trying to outmatch you, it was always clear that he was making sure he didn't hurt anyone; it was always in good clean fun. You always knew when he was getting ready to start something, because he'd start with that grin of his and start looking around the room to see who he could get to take him on.

And I think that grin of his, whether you saw it late at night in section after a few drinks, or on the way to the IM soccer fields for a game of pickup football, or sitting around telling stories about each other and about alums of the fraternity, was really the defining characteristic of Tom for me. He was brilliant yet funny and down to earth, accomplished and motivated yet ready to clown around at the drop of a hat, and he always carried that contagious fun to the people he was with.