Danny rushed back out to Seattle on Friday, June 8th. Claire and I drove him down to Minneapolis to hop on a flight to get him to WA about 8:30pm. It was a hard decision to make, because he had just gotten home a week earlier, but the wise old soul Finley helped.
Matt called Danny and said to come soon/now. Danny hung up and was overtaken by sadness.
Finley came in and asked, "Why are you sad?"
Danny said, "Because Grandpa John is very sick."
Finley asked, "Is he going to die?"
He said, "Yes."
She responded with, "Don't you want to be there? You would be sad if didn't get to say goodbye."
And then she walked away to go play ponies or barbies.
Thankfully, Danny made it. John Thomas died on Saturday morning, June 9th, at 11:11am.
Here are some of our favorite family shots.
Imitating Maya (2006)
April 2007
Oregon Coast (August-November 2007)
Hotel Pool (July 2008)
Meeting Finley (July 2008)
Reading to Maya (February 2009)
Shoveling deck rock (May 2009)
Teaching Maya how to swing (July 2009)
Christmas at the Oregon Coast (December 2009)
Funny Grandpa (May 2010)
Seattle (May 2010)
Last trip to Eugene (July 2010)
A visit to Fargo/Moorhead (September 2010)
Chatting at ballet (May 2012)
Backyard crew (May 2012)
Grandpa and Claire (May 2012)
And his obituary.
John Herbert Thomas
March 21, 1939 - June 09, 2012
Birthplace: Santa Ana, CA
Resided In: Bellevue, WA
An ending. John Herbert Thomas died at home on the 9th of June 2012. Elaine, his wife of 50 years, and his two sons, Matthew and Danny, were at his side when he died, peacefully.
A beginning. John was born to Nettie and Herbert Thomas on the 21st of March 1939, in Santa Ana California, the first of five children.
How then to tell everything that happened in between? To call it a story isn't quite right. A life isn't just one story, it's a lot of stories that intertwine and overlap and eventually make a person. There is no one moment, no single occupation or pursuit that easily defines John. He was a product of all that he did, and his enthusiasm for life led him down many paths. Enthusiastic might be a good word with which to begin, if there was only one word available to describe John. But then, what about kind, generous, funny, loving? See, already, how difficult it is to tell a life?
After an early childhood spent in Los Angeles, John grew up in the Midwest, particularly the Iowa towns of Coin and Shenandoah, where he made good friends.
As a young man, John returned to Los Angeles, where he met Elaine Marie Gilleran. The pair became engaged, and as Elaine finished her degree at UCLA, John made the decision to serve his country. Just before sailing to Europe for a three-year hitch in the army, John and Elaine were married in Glendale, California. 1962 was a big year for them - the beginning of three years in Germany, and the beginning of a 50-year marriage.
Once out of the army, John embarked on what was to be a varied working life. He managed the liquor department of a grocery store. He sold computer accounting systems to businesses when computerisation was a brand new phenomenon. He cleaned buildings and started businesses, tutored high school students in math and took orders for a clothing company over the telephone. His job when he retired was as a photographer for the real estate listings service. It was a job he found fulfilling, because it gave him the freedom to set his own schedule, and it allowed him to hone his photography skills and earn a living at the same time.
In 1968, as John graduated from USC, he and Elaine welcomed the arrival of their first son Matthew. Danny followed in 1973, and the Thomas family was complete...for the time being.
John had a lifelong passion for the arts, and, at various times throughout his life, acted, danced, wrote and performed music, sang in choirs and drew and painted pictures. Much of John's creative life was shared with Elaine, and their example and encouragement led their sons to pursue careers in the arts.
An active outdoorsman, John hiked and camped with friends and family, and was, for many years, involved in the Boy Scouts. He coached and refereed youth soccer, and was an avid birdwatcher. Birding was a pursuit that he could enjoy while travelling and hiking, but he was also very proud of the juncos, bushtits and flickers that populated his own garden.
Love of gardening, baseball and trains kept John busy when there weren't half a dozen other things happening. His preferred method of sowing lupines, foxgloves and California poppies was to randomly scatter seeds across the yard, and let nature do the rest. His spirits rose and fell with the fortunes, or lack thereof, of the Seattle Mariners, and there was no steam locomotive in the Puget Sound area that he hadn't seen up close at least once.
Always keen to travel, John enjoyed several trips to the United Kingdom, to visit his son Matthew, who moved to the southwest of England in 2000.
John's thirst for knowledge and love of storytelling were passed on to his own children, and as they reached adulthood, he began to prepare himself to pass that love onto the next generation of the Thomas family.
Nearly seven years ago, John's first granddaughter, Maya, joined the Thomas outfit. Since then, Danny and his wife Jen, have brought two more girls to the party. Finley is nearly four, and Claire Kathryn arrived in February of 2012. John was devoted completely to his granddaughters, and he was thrilled to make a trip to Moorhead Minnesota, to meet Claire, only a month before he died.
In addition to his wife Elaine, sons Matthew and Danny, Danny's wife Jen and their daughters Maya, Finley and Claire, John leaves behind a brother, Norman, and two sisters, Virginia and Dorothy. They will remember him always and continue to tell his life in stories.
It's hard to tell a life in so few words. Maybe then, these words will serve as an introduction to all of the stories that told John H. Thomas' life for 73 years, and will continue to do so for many more. Maybe the ending isn't the end, and the middle will shape what turns out to be another beginning.
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