Thomas L. Taylor

A sister's tribute

~Tom gave to me the one thing only he could have given to me in this lifetime...and that is a brother. I've always wanted a brother or a sister...the one thing almost every only child desires...and from the moment that Tom made me feel welcome in the Taylor household was the day I started calling him my brother. No, NOT Brother-in-law; Brother.

~I have very few memories of my times with Tom, but I feel fortunate to have just the few that I do. I remember how he used to help me clean Matt's room (Matt had Taco Bell bags that could move on their own) and how he stapled pizza boxes to the wall to tease Matt about their longevity under the bed. We'd talk about nothing as we cleaned...by nothing I mean EVERYTHING with no boundary and really no sequential responses. It was fun conversation : ) One of the best things I remember him saying was that he was glad Matt had found me because I made Matt happy.

~When we went back home in August, to celebrate my mom's birthday, we took her and dad out to dinner after some family pictures had been taken. Matt & I were really surprised when Tom agreed to go to dinner with us and we had such a great time, we were sorry when it was over. That was the night that Tom and I started talking about starting a webpage for him, dedicated to Landsailing, a favorite childhood hobby of his, that he was trying to get back into. Through e-mails, Tom & I began to know each other again a lot better. He began e-mailing me every other day or so, telling me about his tests in school, a homework assignment that he had no idea how to begin, and to tell me about interviews he'd set up to try to find work. We would talk about his webpage and how he wanted it to look, what pictures he was trying to find for me, and so on.

~In October, a week before his birthday, I remember asking Tom what he wanted for his birthday and he said that making the webpage for him was so awesome that he couldn't think of anything else he could want. Matt & I bought him a little something anyway, but it's for this reason, that I couldn't take down his page, I couldn't part with what little I had with him.

~That was the last time I'd heard from Tom. I know he's at peace now, but it still makes me sad to think of the loss that my family has suffered, especially my mom, dad, & husband... I listen to the stories that my family tells about Tom and I commit them to memory so that someday when Matt & I have children, we can tell them about their uncle.

Tom's Landsailing Page