Team Marshall: October 2012

My dad, Tim Tomko

During the afternoon of Saturday, September 15, 2012, my father was cycling in Beaver, Pennsylvania when he had an apparent heart attack and passed away suddenly. It was a shock because my father had been eating healthier, exercising more, and losing weight during the past few years. He had always said he didn't want to grow old, and he died while doing something he loved, I just wished it hadn't been so soon (at the age of 55, he wasn't even old yet!) and that I hadn't been in Japan when it happened.

It's too hard for me to write (and publicly publish) what it was like to get the call from my mother early on a Sunday morning (Japan time), to hurriedly pack and travel for 24 hours, sobbing off-and-on the whole time. I'm not ready to share how I felt doing things I never thought I'd be doing so soon -- helping to plan a funeral service, choose a casket, pick out the last tie and suit my sharply-dressed father would wear, design a headstone. These things are too raw and too personal to write about on the internet. They are meant for intimate conversations. What I will say is that losing my father so suddenly and so early has been terribly, horribly difficult and heart-breaking. Maybe later I will write on this blog about my feelings and what those awful moments were like, but maybe not.

Instead, now, I will share the eulogy that I gave at my father's service on Thursday, September 20, 2012. On the back of the program for the service there was a quote that we had found on my dad's phone, a photo he had taken at the end of June. It read, "...and in the end, it's not the years in the life, but the life in the years."

My dad walking me down the aisle
October 2009

Here is the eulogy I gave at my dad's service:

Everyone here knew Tim in a different way. He was a kind friend, a dedicated teacher, and a loving son, brother, and uncle. I’d like to share with you how my sister and I knew him our adoring father.

From the moment we were born, my dad adored my sister Madelyn, my brother Jordan, and me. He wasn't always the best at expressing his feelings or emotions, but I know he loved us and was proud of us. In the past 3 days, we’ve met several people who know about us just from my proud papa talking about us. As a baby, I would scream and cry when I was in my dad’s arms unless he walked around with me. So, patiently, he would spend hours walking around our small trailer home with me, not sitting down.

I remember, when I was a kid, we would have Saturday night wrestling matches. The matches always ended with me laughing hysterically – he won all the time, of course. I understand that when they were younger, my dad and his older brother Greg would have similar wrestling matches. Though my uncle might not admit it, my Grandma said my dad usually won those matches, too.

My father was a very talented man. He was a skilled wood-worker who made gorgeous gifts for people. For several years he built playhouses that were auctioned off or sold for CASA Beaver County. My father was a perfectionist at everything he did, so the playhouses he built – along with everything else he made – were a work of art. In college he got into photography and even photographed his long-time friend Gregg's wedding. In recent years he had gotten into painting – he did the painting that is hanging on the wall.
When my dad did something, he fully committed to it. He was a top-rate fencer in college. He loved his motorcycle and grew so knowledgeable about them that he spent some time working at Tracy’s World of Cycles. Later, he became a cigar connoisseur. He enjoyed spending time at King Beaver Cigars in Monaca. My dad related best to people over cigars. He even gave them out at my wedding reception. You might even call him a “cigar pusher”. I think he was responsible for many peoples' bad habits. He also loved cycling, drinking coffee from Sheetz, a good beer, and a nice suit and tie. He always noticed and appreciated when someone wore nice shoes. When he and my mother Meg had been married, my father had literally bought her an entire closet worth of shoes. He enjoyed riling up his sister Gretchen's dogs. He was his father Steve's fishing and hunting buddy. He put hot sauce on everything – including popcorn. One Christmas, he challenged his brother Greg and his nephew Michael to challenge him to a hot-sauce eating contest. By the end they had ran out of chips and were eating patzells coated in hot sauce.

I'm sure that many people here know what a funny guy my dad was. He loved to laugh and joke with people. One time on a white water rafting trip with his family, my dad convinced his nephew Michael that it was imperative to wear half of a milk jug on his head as a safety device. So Michael wore that milk jug on his head down the river.

Teaching was one of my father's greatest passions. He loved his students and he loved teaching industrial arts and technology classes. As children, my sister and I spent many hours playing around in my dad's woodshop under his supervision. My dad was the original John Keating. Long before Dead Poets Society, my dad was jumping on desks and finding creative ways to teach his students. He once designated a day as “Opera Day”, where all his students had to SING their questions and conversations. He even refused to let one boy use the hall pass unless he asked for it in a singing voice. He was always doing fun things like that to get his students involved. When the wood shop closed last year, my dad was devastated. Though he hated paperwork, he stayed on as the guidance counselor because he loved students and cared for them so much. In the past few days, I've heard person after person tell me how well-liked my dad was. Several students told me that Mr. Tomko was their favorite teacher who they felt they could really talk to. My dad once told me a story about a boy he counseled through the guidance office who had some trouble at home. This boy didn't like to talk at first, but my dad found out that he enjoyed playing checkers. Now, my dad doesn't enjoy playing board games, but he bought a checkers set and played it with that boy to connect with him, and over their games, the student opened up and talked with my dad. That's the kind of caring teacher my dad was. He also coached track, worked on prom and homecoming, planned rafting trips and paintball trips, and worked with the student service group. He also enjoyed his coworkers. There were so many people who worked at the school that were special to my dad – from his lunch ladies to the secretaries to the custodial staff to his cigar buddies to those who had already retired. There are too many people who were special for my dad for me to name them all.

I wish my father, a perfectionist and his own worst critic, could have heard all the wonderful things that people were saying about him: how well-loved he was, how special he was to so many people, and how greatly he impacted the lives of others.

My dad did exactly what he wanted to do, and didn't care what other people thought. He proudly wore his biker boots no matter what the occasion – even to high school graduation ceremonies. Just as assuredly, he wore his biker shorts to church or to the cigar shop. This independent thinking was a trait my sister Madelyn inherited from him. She has her own style and hated wearing dresses. My dad loved to see her dressed sharply, so she wore a dress today just for him. My father was a trend-setter, doing things a few years before everyone else started doing them too. His family teased him about the ponytail he once grew in the 90s, but sure enough, a few years later, everyone was growing them. He was a stubborn man. After his last accident on his bicycle in July, my grandmother asked my dad to give up that bike. He just stubbornly shook his head and said, “Mom, you know that's not gonna happen.” Even in his death, my father did what he wanted to do. He always said he never wanted to grow into an old man – and he didn't. He died doing something he loved to do. I just wish it hadn't been so soon.

There were so many things my dad never got to do. He never got a tattoo that he had been deciding on for the past few years. He never got to retire (which he planned on doing this year). He never got to build that log house he wanted. He never got to see my sister perform on Broadway. What breaks my heart the most is that he never got to be a grandfather. He was really looking forward to having grandchildren to spoil. Kris and I had only been married for a year when my dad started to ask us when we were going to give him grandchildren. Dad, I'm so sorry you'll never get to meet your grandchildren. I know you would have been a fun grandfather.

My dad and I didn't have a perfect relationship, but I loved him and I know he loved me. I'm going to miss him. I'll miss riding on his motorcycle, which was one of my favorite things to do with my dad. I'll miss catching up with him over a beer and wings. I'll miss the way he said, “Hey Baby Girl” when I saw him or when he answered the phone.

God gave me 28 years with my father, and for that I am thankful. Now my father is in Heaven, where there is no more pain or sorrow. He is with his son that he never stopped missing, and he is in the presence of God. I love you Dad, and I will miss you, but I have hope in knowing that one day I will see you again.

My dad at the age of 6
1965

My dad with his sister, Gretchen, and parents, Mildred and Steve

My dad in college

My dad and I at one of my dad's church softball games
1984

My dad and I at my Kindergarten graduation,
1990

My dad with Jordan, the son he never stopped missing,
September 1992

My dad and sister, Madelyn
1995

My father's graduation ceremony at Westminister College, where he earned his second Masters (this one in gudiance counseling),
1996

My dad with his two girls (and a cigar),
1997

My dad and sister, Madelyn, at her 10th birthday party,
August 2003

My dad building a bed for my cousin, Michael

The men of the Tomko family: Grandad Tomko, Dad, Kris, Uncle Greg (my dad's brother), and Andrew Knight (my dad's nephew-in-law)
Christmas, 2008

At the wedding weekend barbecue
Aunt Gretchen (my dad's sister), Carrie and Andrew Knight (my dad's neice and nephew-in-law), Dad, and my Tomko grandparents (my dad's mother and father)
October 2009