My brother in law passed a few weeks ago. Tom, married to Mark's sister
Sharon.
At Mark's college apartment, 1984
Thought they were technically old enough to be our parents, we thought of them as just slightly older than us since they were young at heart. Sharon and Tom took me under their wings and made me part of the family.
At Mark's college graduation with his aunt Aagot and Uncle Ken, 1984
Visiting us at our first apartment in Austin.
At a UT football game - one of Tom's passions.
I was never all that close with Tom - he was a reserved kind of guy - but Mark was, and since I loved Sharon, I thought of Tom as family to me, not just to Mark. We visited them several times in Dallas while we were in college, then when the time came to marry, Mark chose Tom as his best man.
The Best Man, 1985
Once we had a couple of kids, we weren't seeing them often as they lived in Dallas and we in Austin. We were poor, working full time, had our hands full with small children. And by the time we had Baby #3 and Baby #4, we had gone through many changes in life. We drifted from them and their two kids, who seemed to grow up in a blink . Fast forward to 2015 and Sharon passed. A hop, skip, and a jump, and Tom followed.
Tom and Sharon, with Bryan and Paige
I started writing this post in a disgruntled state of mind, and maybe I feel that way a little, still. While you have your hands full raising a family and trying to get further along in your career, you tend to drop the people and activities you had earlier because you run out of things: time, money, interest. Sounds terrible on our part, but that works both ways, of course. They sort of ran out of interest for us, too, while they were busy doing the same things. And suddenly we were all much older, and they had health concerns.
Tom and Sharon at Rustown, 2012
I'm sure both of them had some warm and fuzzies for us, but we were separated by so many things. And it was apparent this last weekend at his funeral. It was a long drive, but no one asked or expected us to stay overnight or spend any one on one time, connecting as a family. ("Ya'll could make a pallet on the floor..." is what we were offered) I felt less like a family member and more like another funeral guest. I'm not sure how Mark felt about that, but he remarked that it was the end of an era - in fact, the era had passed long ago.
I know a lot of folks want to give you advice to the effect of telling the people you love that you love them and spending more time with them while they are alive, but it doesn't always work out for that to happen. So for now, I will hang on to all of the happy memories and speak their names with love. They were an important part of the early years and I grieve for all that is lost.
