It was 14 years ago today that my friend and co-worker Tom Bell died. I gave a eulogy at his funeral, and this is what I said. It just seemed fitting to share it here today.
TOM BELL
As I was deciding what to say this morning, I came across
a quote from the late Sir Winston Churchill.
It seemed particularly appropriate for today.
As he neared the end of his life,
Churchill said: “I am indeed ready to
meet my Maker. But whether or not my
Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
Tom Bell worked for Atlantic Stainless
for more than 15 years. He was our Sales
Manager, and the best salesmen I have ever seen. He was a dedicated professional, and inspired
tremendous loyalty from his customers – some of whom are here today.
Over the course of 15 years Tom and I
became friends – in between the times we were fighting and arguing, of
course. As those who knew him well will
attest, Tom Bell despised being told he couldn’t do something. And as his immediate boss, I was often the
one who had to tell him “No”. He hated
that – almost as much, I must admit, as I enjoyed it.
Tom and I had a mutual
understanding. He always let me think
that I was in charge, and I always looked the other way when he did all the
things I told him not to do. But Tom got
away with things no one else did because he earned the right. For 15 years he gave our company his complete
and total loyalty, the first one there in the morning and the last one out the
door at night. He cared about his job,
his company, and his customers.
But beyond his professional side, I
got to know Tom the person. Tom Bell
loved to try and make everyone think he was some kind of tough guy. He growled a lot, talked a good game, and
tried to intimidate you right off the bat.
But if you got past the blustery exterior, you soon discovered that
unless you were trying to sell him something, Tom was really just a big pushover.
And most of all – Tom loved to
talk. If you didn’t stop him, Tom would
have talked 24 hours a day. Sometimes I
would go to the office men’s room just to get away from him as he was yakking
on and on about the Red Sox or whatever else struck his fancy that day. That didn’t stop him though – he talked to me
through the door like nothing ever happened.
Once Tom got going, you just couldn’t stop him.
There were two major topics that Tom
talked about more than anything else.
Going in reverse order, the second of those was the Carver Little
League.
Tom and his family are the only people
any of us in the office know in Carver.
Despite that, I bet most of us could recite the starting line-up for the
Padres team every year Tom coached them.
He would tell us who was pitching that day, who he was planning to pitch
next week, how his shortstop was getting so much better on ground balls, and
how he was going to draft Jimmy’s brother next season. We had absolutely no idea who or what he was
talking about, but that never stopped him.
Tom loved kids, and he loved the
Carver Little League. He tried to
pretend that he only coached to help the kids, but the truth is he loved being
around them. Every year he would tell us
this was his last year – and then he would do it again. The trunk of his company car was always full
of equipment bags, gloves, balls and bats.
The only time he ever asked to leave work early was when he had a game
that night.
And he despised what he called “Serial
Coaches”, those who placed winning above the welfare of the kids on his or her
team. Tom knew every kid, knew their
problems, their family situations, their needs.
He brought them home, bought them ice cream and pizza, and taught them
baseball. But more than that, he also
was an authority figure, someone they respected and they looked to for
advice. And he never let them down. He was truly a symbol of what youth sports
leaders can and should be all about.
The other thing Tom talked about
constantly, more than anything else, were his girls, Diana and Kym. Okay, maybe Pat got thrown in there once in a
while too, but most of the time we were all regaled with the stories of how
beautiful, how talented, how smart, and how amazing his two daughters were.
When Diana got a new job, we all knew
about it – in great detail. When Kym
made the varsity basketball team, even the UPS driver who came to Atlantic
heard all about it. When Diana
straightened out a guy who had gotten rude with her, Tom bragged about it for
weeks. And every time Kym wrote a paper
that impressed Tom, we had to listen to it time and time again. To say Tom was a proud father would be the
understatement of the ages.
Tom’s love for his family was simple,
complete, and unconditional. It extended
beyond Pat and the girls, to his mother, his late father, his mother-in-law,
his brother and sister and their families too.
It wasn’t always a gushy, sentimental kind of love. It was a quiet but solid commitment to family
that was ingrained in him.
But I am not here today to portray Tom
as some kind of saint – he definitely wouldn’t want me to do that. The truth is he could be downright irritating
much of the time, and lacked a lot of the finer social skills – or at least,
just never cared enough to use them. He
thought there were only two ways to do things – his way, and the wrong
way. He made the proverbial bull in the
china shop look petite and dainty. He
could never walk across the entire office without bumping into at least one
person. And he should be in the Guinness
Book of World Records for using the word “OK” more in one lifetime than any
other human being. He had a style that
was – well, uniquely Tom Bell.
I would give anything just to have Tom
walk into my office one more time complaining about one of his orders that
hadn’t shipped yet. I wish I could hear
just one more Little League story, one more of his corny jokes. It is so hard to believe he won’t be there
after this Christmas, wearing whatever his daughters gave him for a
present. I’d give anything just to see
him scowl one more time.
But while none of that will happen, we
can all step back and thank Tom for what he added to our lives. While our heart goes out to his family for
this loss, we also join them in celebrating the good life he lived. When it came to the important things, Tom
never took a single step back. Right or
wrong, he was always consistent – and it is hard to ask for more than that.
To close my remarks, I would like to
read an old toast that I told to Tom one day, and he always liked a lot. It sums up the spirit of Tom Bell, especially
the one we knew at work for 15 years. It
goes like this:
“Here’s to you, and here’s to me, and
may we never disagree. But if we do –
the hell with you. Here’s to me.”
So long Tom. I’ll never forget you.
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