It was on this day 14 years ago that my mother passed away. Today comes word that my stepbrother, Tom Collar, has also passed away. Tom is at the top of this picture, which dates to the 1980s, along with my stepbrother Mark and my niece, Barb Collar Vorachek.
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| We're a happy family |
Tom came into our lives when my father, Ed Heuring, married his mother, Darlene Collar, in 1980. There were six Heurings and five Collars, so it got to be a pretty full house during the holidays. We ended up becoming a real Brady Bunch-like amalgamation of people, a fun-loving and periodically dysfunctional extended family. Dad and Dar ended up buying a big house on the edge of Appleton with a huge back yard and we had many great times together, filled with laughter, adult beverages and countless games of cribbage, with bonfires in the back yard and the occasional golf ball flying into the cornfields behind the house. Laughter was the primary sound in that happy home. Although by then I was in college and only home once in a while, the big house on Railroad Street was a fantastic place to be.
Tom was the youngest of the Collars, less than two years younger than me. Tom didn't always have an easy time of it in his life, but even as he struggled with diabetes and a variety of other problems during his journey, he remained a gentle soul, quick to smile and slow to anger, even when he had reason to be angry. Now that journey is over, suddenly, way too soon. We are shocked and deeply saddened.
As it happens, August is also the month that my father passed away, some 24 years ago now. And we've lost other people near to us in the month of August. It is astonishing, really, that so many challenges have faced our family in one particular month. You'll pardon me, I hope, if I humbly suggest that the month of August might consider doing something anatomically impossible. Barring that, I'd like to request an early September.
1 comment:
condolences on your loss, Mark, and prayers for Tom and the family.
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