Emily Dickinson wrote this poem in the mid 1800's This quiet dust Was gentleman and ladies And lads and girls Was laughter and ability And sighing and frocks and curls… This peaceful place, a summers nimble mansion Where bloom and bees fulfill their oriental circuit Then cease like these……. Down through the ages great poetry and music has communicated the very essence of human experience. Within the genius of classical human creation we can find the timeless truths that calm our souls in times of sorrow. We are asked to have faith because the workings of the world are more mysterious than we think. Each of us is here today as a direct result of having won the most astonishing race in all of existence. One egg was fertilized by a single sperm to the total exclusion of tens of millions of others. Think what an amazing miracle, what a gift it is for any of us to even show up on this planet. I think the truth is that this world is more mysterious than we can think! On Wednesday Tom's next-door neighbor Allan and his wife Denise were overjoyed as their new baby boy took his first breath in this world. A few hours later another event in the natural cycle of life took place as Tom Cox drew his final breath after 27,040 days in this world. I was at a loss as to what to say to you here today. It suddenly became clear to me after seeing that little baby. I understood then, that everything is complete and perfect, that the universe operates in utterly divine order. William Blake, one of the great poets; said that Gods one and only voice is silence. From the silence a newborn has emerged and into the silence an old soul has returned. The cycle continues…. We find ourselves left behind, grieving for our loss and of course this is a healthy and natural process. For all of us who loved this man, there is a huge hole in our lives left by his passing. Slowly we will all come to terms with the paradoxical circumstance that makes our world a lesser place without him and yet, at the same time, a far better place because he passed by here. Tom Cox was a man comfortable in his own skin who considered himself neither superior to, nor beneath any other person. He was entirely unpretentious and was both satisfied with and grateful for his lot in life. Tom was the kind of person people liked and respected almost immediately. His family, his friends and his community were most important to him. Tom would tell you that the only reason he was able to accomplish anything in his life, was because of his friends. These strong, enduring relationships followed him through all his days. Tom would do anything for the people he cared about and they would and did do all they could in return. This became particularly obvious to us after mom died. His children were busy building their own lives and he may well have become a lonely recluse were it not for the support of his generous, loving friends. Proof positive of his personal adage, which states that; whatever you give to others will come back to you ten fold. Tom Cox was blessed with the gifts of intelligence, intellectual fearlessness and physical talent. This good fortune made it possible for him to make meaningful contributions to his community, and to the people he cared most about. He was lucky enough to marry his one true love true and they enjoyed more than forty happy years together. He was able to develop and maintain many long close personal friendships. He was spiritually content. He produced a large, purposeful progeny. He lived a long happy, and except for the last couple of years, healthy life. There were only a handful of days in his entire life in which he did not laugh. He loved classical music and show tunes and he sang out loud at every opportunity. He was a fully functioning, self-actualized human being. Tom Cox had plenty to be grateful for and he would be the first to say so. So let us celebrate this magnificent, well lived life. Let us remember his bright, genuine smile, his ready sense of humor and his legendary temper. For that was Tom. His typical demeanor could fairly be likened to a summer's day through which the occasional intense, though harmless thunderstorm passes. On matters in which he held a strong opinion he was a skilled and passionate debater with little tolerance for BS. One would have been well advised to have their position well established and fully thought through, before entering into a serious debate with Tom Cox. Who can forget that deep booming voice, the color rising in his face then blooming crimson into his bald head as all 300 plus pounds of him begin swinging into a full linear rant. I am sure it came as a relief for many of you who knew him best, to discover that this trait of his temperament somehow failed to migrate successfully downstream to his offspring. Few who attended could ever forget the Lions Club shows of years gone by. A wonderful talented group of community members singing and performing on stage live for the whole town. Tom was particularly memorable in his assorted roles whether as Charles DeGaule "Vive Quebec libre!" Winston Churchill, the Pope, Mike Duffy, Archie Bunker or dressed up as a gangster of even a ballet dancer. Do you remember the dunk tank at the Lions Carnival? Tom was a great sport. Tom was very proud of his personal contribution towards the construction of the Atikokan Arena. He played an instrumental role in accomplishing this project and along with a few of his friends, made it happen right from start to finish. During his years on Town Council Tom lent his expertise to many issues and projects including the building of the Atikokan Community Center. Again, as part of a team effort but one in which he took great pride. All through his life Tom worked in positions in which he came in contact with large numbers of people. Be it his first paper route as a youth in Fort Frances, or managing George Armstrong's operations in Atikokan, to his many years at St. Pats School and finally to Quetico North. It was in these public positions that his personal relationships and enduring friendships were both established and maintained. There seems to be an endless supply of Tom Cox stories floating around plus we have accumulated a large archive. So our family has gone ahead and created an on line memorial website @ www.tbcox.com We invite all of you to visit the site at anytime and if you like, to contribute your own Tom and/or Tom and Ilene Cox story. As time goes on we intend to continue evolving the site to include all Cox family members from the past and present In closing I will attempt to lighten all of our hearts just a little by leaving you with a few of Tom's more memorable quotations. You would not have had to be around him for very long before one of these would pop up.
Thank you for coming here today.