On January 3, 2016, Thomas George Malone, of Cumming, GA, passed away peacefully at home in the arms of his loving wife of almost 39 years. Thomas, also known to most as Tom, was born on September 3, 1952 in Midlothian, IL to a family that grew to nine children. He moved to the Atlanta area after completing college at the University of Illinois.
He lived in Riverdale, GA for 10 years and Fayetteville, GA for 25 years. Tom and his wife, Tammy, had recently moved to Cumming, GA to be closer to their son and grandchildren. He retired after 32 years of loyal service from the Federal Aviation Administration. He was known to family and friends for his great sense of humor, love of family, Coca-Cola, puzzles, and outdoor projects. He and his wife loved spending time enjoying the warm comfort of the beaches in St. Thomas. Tom was preceded in death by his parents, George and LaVerne Malone; his siblings, Carol Slawinski, Nancy Massat, and Jim Malone. He is survived by his wife, Tammy Malone; his son and daughter-in-law, Paul and Laura Malone; sisters and brother-in-laws, Fred Massat, Patricia and Andy Wilbanks, Kathy and Ken Maynard, Theresa Kemper, Gail Schmidt, and Georgene Geary. Tom has 2 granddaughters, Lilly and Katelyn, and he was affectionately known as “Papa”. He is survived by many nieces and nephews. Tom’s Celebration of Life is at 11AM on Saturday, January 16, 2016 at Mowell Funeral Home, Fayetteville Chapel. His family will be receiving friends one hour prior to the celebration service.
He was funny.
I will always remember his great sense of humor, which could be described as campy or even cheesy, sometimes corny, but always friendly and good-natured. I recall the year I started high school he basically lived in Washington and on one of his trips home, mom and I decided to play a prank on him. I wore one of those fake magnetic earrings and led him to believe it was real. When I came back from a football game that night he was visibly upset, which was out of character, and yelled at me for the earring, even pushing me down on the couch causing my friends to run for cover. Before they could call 911, he started laughing. Turns out, he found out about our prank from Mom and turned the prank on us.
He was kind, humble, and generous.
Any given weekend you could find him wearing tattered jeans and an old ripped t-shirt and old beat up sandals drinking a Coke in the yard or at a ball game. He was so thrifty on himself, he once found a hat in some random parking lot and wore it for years, but he was also the type to always pick up a check and never fish for compliments or ask for anything. He was altruistic and always rooted for the underdog.
He loved building things.
A huge part of him was his immense drive for projects. He was always renovating something around the house or building a wall or path and even a pond at his house. He bought a dilapidated house down the street for the fun of restoring it. He transformed my front yard from a steep slope where weeds couldn’t grow to a terraced lawn worthy of a magazine cover.
He was smart.
When it was too dark or cold to build something, he liked solving puzzles. He assembled an epic amount of jigsaw puzzles, but always had a puzzle magazine or crossword in hand. In hindsight, he helped me with school projects not because I needed it, but because he enjoyed it. He was the type of person you asked questions and sought advice because it seemed he had it figured out.
He was competitive.
His intellect was only rivaled by his competitive nature. It was not uncommon to get into loud, but good-hearted, debates during board games and card games. I’m reminded of the meme “Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud… After the first few hours you realize they enjoy it.” And he loved the mud both figuratively and literally.
He was a great father and grandfather.
He has been very involved in my life in all aspects from sports to school to fatherhood. Early on, he chaperoned school trips, coached baseball, basketball, even cub scouts. We would play ping pong or chess or checkers or some other board game almost nightly. During college, I took up tennis and we played every weekend we could. He continued that involvement with his granddaughters going to soccer games, ballet recitals, birthdays and whatever else he could.
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I never really got to say good-bye. Although we knew his health was declining, I never felt or believed he was on his last days. I tried to visit or call a couple times a week to check-in, but I carry some guilt for not initiating a real conversation in the last few weeks. We were all supposed to go on a cruise together the first week of January, but he came down with phenomena weeks earlier and some host vs graft the week prior, so they had to back out. Strangely, we had a cruise planned together two years prior and a similar set of circumstances came up preventing them from coming, so I didn’t think too much of it this time. Thankfully, I did make it a point to call them from the ship and video chat with both of them showing them the cabin and giving the obligatory “wish you were here” and “love you”. He was lucid and able to recipricate conversation, which left me thinking he was steady and would be there when we called back. Unfortunately, he died the next evening.
It’s been two weeks since his passing and I still don’t know how to put my feelings into words. I feel immense sadness for him as a person with wants and dreams being deprived of a long life to accomplish them. I am sad for my mom being thrown into a new life without her partner and best friend; I can’t imagine how hard that must be after 39 years of mutual dependence and sharing each others lives. I am sad for myself and Laura; we are both losing a father, a friend and mentor. I am especially sad for Lilly and Katie although they probably won’t remember these years later; they will miss out on a great role model and years of interacting and learning from him.
In addition to the sadness, I feel a numbness similar to what I imagine a missing appendage might feel like. I can still picture his face and remember his voice and I know better, but I feel like if I called his phone, he might pick up or he’s just going to come in the door like he always does. Every morning when I wake up, I’m hit with the memory he’s gone and it takes my breath away for a moment. Throughout the day, I go into mini day dreams when I see something of his or something he did.
I love and miss you Dad.
You are a special son and you were loved deeply by your dad. You were the light in his eyes. I love you. Mom
On April 7, 2016, Tammy, Laura, Lilly, Katie, and I spread Tom’s ashes in the Virgin Islands per his wishes. The location is 18.364174153865104,-64.80493558690794