Thursday, November 16, 2023
Jane, Danny, Michael and your entire family, I am so glad I was able to come to the celebration of Tom's life. He was a man who truly deserved to be celebrated. Tom and Mike hired me in 1985, it was my first job and it was a long ride. Tom taught me how to follow my instincts not books, when supporting folks with Autism and Disabilities. He modeled kindness and empathy and faith. He was truly an out of the box thinker and was one of the most creative people I have ever met. When he had a new idea, forget every thing else. He would run with it and flush it out regardless of time or conventional restraints. When all of our kids were young and Tom would call in the evening, my husband would hand me the phone and laugh and say I guess I'm on bath time tonight! He created so many philosophies, programs and so many systems that truly changed our field. He was such an incredibly hard worker and passed that ethic on to so many of us that will miss him. He also taught us balance in life. His family was everything to him, we all knew everything Jane, Danny and Michael did, he was so proud. He would bring in tomatoes from his garden and would always have his sneakers ready for "a walking meeting". In recent years Steve and I looked forward to our annual Tom "catch up letter". He was such a great man and his family is his legacy, I will truly miss him xo Theresa
