Tom Collins - Online Memorial Website

Preparing for the last trip

 

Tom Collins retired from his 9 to 5 career in civil service in early 1980, which meant well over 27 years of pursuing his next career of seeing the world on his terms. This was not much more than a year after running for the office of San Mateo County Assessor. The Assessor and assistant assessor had retired and Tom was the #3 chief assessor running against the #4 man in the office. They had been long-time rivals and opposites.  I had just graduated from UC Davis and was recruited along with my Aunt Micky to become full-time staff.   It was a special opportunity got to know my dad as the team leader.

 

Till then he had been my father, here I got to know him as a determined, brilliant yet uncommonly stubborn candidate.  It was a close race, more than one newspaper said both were qualified and endorsed both. I saw my father's stump speech go from choppy to smooth and I learned that there are never enough hours in the day to get done all you would like too. Mostly I learned how family is where the heart is and that my family had great heart.

 

I also came to a new sense of how my co-worker aunt and her mother and sisters pursued their spiritual lives as their greatest calling. My dad was the most questioning in his family while my aunt Micky was the most experienced in understanding the many treasures available through an understanding  of the many spiritual traditions we have available to us. She had embraced the unknowable on her own terms and become, from my perspective, and enlighted being. She taught me that trusting intuition and feeling was as important as thinking and that sensations, while important could only take you so far.

 

My friends in the International Carnival City Federation  still remember my dad's colorful personality beginning in 2000 when he decided he had to go to be part of the pomp and ceremony at St. Petersburg's first Carnaval in 2000 and the grand receptions at Katrina's Palace and Peterhoff. His enthusiasm for our group was tempered a bit the following year when we met at an isolated Polish spa which had not been remodeled from its Communist era heyday.

 

He also made going to the Carnival capital of Rio de Janeiro his last trip on earth. This was in the Spring of 2007, one of his oldest goals, dating from a book he'd read when he was 10 years old was to sail around Cape Horn. Someone’s book about of sailing to distant shores was always certain to be read by my father. He was a voracious reader all his life with no time for TV until he reached his 70’s

 

Because of a failing body the preparation for this journey was to be the most challenging.  He pressed on with extra workouts at  Primetime  till he could handle his own luggage and caught his ship out of the harbor in Santiago Chile.  Five days out he was having trouble breathing and decided to check in with the ship’s infirmary.

To his regret the doctor insisted in having the captain drop him off to an ambulance at the next port. This small town of 2500 had gone so long without a cruise ship docking that the newspaper took his picture which I am sure he loved. However by this time his breathing was normal so he just wanted out, the doctors at the hospital were not so accommodating. At day 3, he was not going to wait for consensus on when he should leave. He bribed an orderly for his clothes and luggage and hightailed it by taxi back  to Santiago where he booked a plane to Rio In Rio he had a hotel on the beach. He was very pleased when his request for handicapped accommodations resulted in a grand suite overlooking the famous Copacabana beach. He hired a guide, and spent the next week  being escorted  all over the marvelous city where the mountains meet the sea including going to Carnaval practices as well as going all the way to the top of the Christ the Redeemer mountain Cordovado.

 

He spent the most time working on this final voyage from the present.  It was 12 years ago that he sent out a memorable greeting of himself waving from his Blue Buick convertible in front of the family home just above  a banner reading “ Do Not Forget Me” 

He was stubborn in his rejection of the more commonly held beliefs about heaven and hell and even the cycle of rebirth which Carnaval as a SPRING festival represents; BUT he did say he’d coming back to haunt us if his certain final wishes were not followed.

 

In sum I'd have to say his approach to the afterlife was that the faith that stands on authority is not faith  Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries. Nobody can bring you peace but yourself. It is not length of life, but depth of life.

 Tom Collins passed into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

so many days ski trips boating and of course eating one special day on the petaluma river we stopped at this little greek restuarant tom ordered oysters what a mess he looked at me and said this is living terence juice and wine dripping from his beard that was a good day my, father died when i was sixteen tom was my father+ friend advisor i will miss him but wont forget him love you terence