Thomas J Carpenter

When I think of my life with Tom, so many memories come to mind, like when he would take the discard paper from work to make GIANT snowflakes with the girls….and then leave them all over my living room! He adored his girls and was always thinking of them. Recently someone showed him some decorated pumpkins, and his first thought was to take a picture to show the girls because he knew they would love them. However, he was scared of these girls he loved so much turning into teenagers. He was creative in coming up with names for the kids….like Theodore Rex, so he could call them T. Rex.

He assured me regularly that I was a nerd. He did not want to live to be 100 -- like his Grandpa and Great Grandma. He was not a people person, but you would never know it because he would start up conversations with anyone. And he could NEVER drive safely when we were going someplace new because he was always distracted by the scenery.

He loved cheese. He was always buying more cheese than we had room for, and when I would try to tell him that, he would say, “I don’t understand the words coming out of your mouth.” He thought that we should have two refrigerators...one for regular use, and one dedicated to cheese. Some of you may remember times finding a brown bag of cheese in the fridge with your name on it as a gift from Tom.

So often we have no idea what is going on with the person next to us. Even in our marriage we were facing some struggles and trials. Not long ago, I was in a place where I didn’t have hope, and I wanted to give up on it all.

Galatians 6:2 says to “bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” God created us to need to be supported by each other. We are not made to handle our struggles alone. This means that we not only have to be open to share our struggles, but we have to be open to hearing and supporting others as they struggle. It is not necessarily making people understand others better. It is making it safe for people to be honest about their pain and struggles.

Tom did not do that. No one knew how much he was hurting. He saw himself as worthless. Robin Williams once said, “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.”

Emotions are a part of being made in the image of God. King David was a mighty warrior, yet Psalms is a record of his pouring his heart out with emotions both high and low. We have to share our pain. We have to grieve. If you try to box the pain up inside of you, it will manifest in other ways.

Tom, I wish you could see the impact you had, see the lives you touched, and know how much your presence would be missed on this earth. True story.

I love you more.