Eulogy

by Adelle Tippetts

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Tom’s less musically inclined daughter, but I would prefer to introduce myself as the list of nicknames my dad assigned me Boo Radley, Deli, Delphinium, Welbec, A-wol, Mardigan, Delfarligan, Delbifish, Deli-half elven, Delbatron, Delbtard, and the oracle at Delphi.

When I had first heard something had happened to my father, I turned to my very good friend Margaret (who dad had nicknamed Marzipan) and said “he better not die because for one now I have to take his reading recommendations a lot more seriously and, more pressing, I’m going have to write the best eulogy of all time.

True to my dad being my dad, he left me with this challenge. For those of you who don’t know, my father wrote a beautiful tribute when his father, my grandpa, Papa, who passed away in 2020. Anyway, it’s only fitting to begin with my dad’s own words about his father that also ring true to him.

“Like the old poet, my dad lived his life in widening circles. More found themselves within those arcs at the end than in the beginning.” – Tom L Tippetts.

Thomas LaVere Tippetts was born the inquisitive and rebellious child of Thomas Howard and Pamela Budge Tippetts. Tom was the second born of five children, Joe, Tom, Heidi, Eva, and Holly. Growing up “little Tom” was often read to and sung to, made to hike and work in the yard or build homes with his dad. His parents cultivated a rich variety of experiences for their children. It was during this free-range childhood that Tom’s inherent desire to push boundaries both physically and verbally flourished into an exciting youthful recklessness. As a teenager he found a like minded group of rogues (lovingly known as the Chowder Heads). Embracing small town rebellion, they traded uninspired curricula for the wind in their faces and smoke in their lungs. Activities like releasing live chickens from the rafters of high school basketball games and run-ins with the Springville PD helped hone my Dad’s signature “Tom trash talk,” an important aspect of his verbal repertoire. As those close to him knew, his chosen mode of affection for loved ones was typically teasing, sarcasm, or creative beratement. The more he cared about you the more he engaged.

It was in these years, that his adored uncle Cyril handed Tom his first Lorenna McKennitt cassette, starting him down a lifelong road of song seeking. Music became dad’s first therapy, and his playlists—once mixed tapes, then burned on to CDs with cryptic, scrawly labels— ranged from choral ensembles, Kumbia beats, steel drum covers, Italian ballads, and Japanese rap.

After high school, Tom backpacked through Europe where he found and fell in love with what he so deeply longed for: a never ending challenge— Sarah Skousen. She was everything and more to him. That trip began something that was constant in Tom’s life— living in awe of Sarah. Knowing Sarah and her religious devotion alleviated Tom’s consuming existentialism, eventually inspiring him to travel to the Yucatan on a mission for the Mormon church. A favor dad would later return when he supported mom’s desire to depart from this particular expression of spirituality following the start of my childhood.

Tom and Sarah were married on August 17, 2000 in the Manti Utah LDS temple. During the ceremony the officiator claimed that the marital relationship would function best with Tom as the head and Sarah as the neck. This suggested dynamic was disturbing to Sarah, but she was immediately put at ease by a wink and smirk from across the altar. This was indicative of Dad’s distaste for authority and status quo that was born of his and mom’s desire to create one’s own authentic life path.

Tom and Sarah, both keen to curate, created and lived many beautiful lives together; continually asking each other the unanswerable questions: how to live, what is sacred and where to discover the je ne sais quoi? With every challenge and set-back they entertained these questions together.

Tom’s devotion and commitment to Sarah from the beginning to the end was never out of obligation; it was a pure desire and need to be in her orbit. He looked at her as anyone longs to be looked at. She marveled at the world of ideas and conversations he kept in rotation. Perhaps most importantly they made each other laugh. On their various journeys together Mom drove through narrow windy roads and Dad navigated, all while curating the soundtrack.

In 2002, Dad received his bachelors degree in Philosophy from Brigham Young University. At age 25, Tom started law school at University of Texas, with an 18 month old, Tess, and another child, me, due during the finals of his first year. He took the pressures to care for his young family very seriously and gave up reading anything but his law school texts so he could excel every semester. Finding KGSR vol. 11 CD at Waterloo Records was the first and ultimate sign that choosing to go to law school in the live music capital of the world was the right choice.

Following his graduation from law school in 2006, Tom and Sarah and their two daughters journeyed to Dallas where Tom began his career as corporate attorney at Haynes and Boone. Here in their first home Tom and Sarah created so much for their daughters. The red brick house on Clayton Street was my and Tess’s first art house movie theater with many trips made to Premier Video and Blockbuster. While, Half Price Books off of Northwest Highway built the beginnings of an at-home library. Despite long days at the firm, Dad was a consistent read aloud partner in the bedtime routine and, of course, queued a never ending playlist to our lives.

In 2010, after much quandary and discussion, Tom and Sarah decided to trade Sunday church services for reading the New York Times aloud, watching Meet the Press and most importantly friends & family ultimate frisbee games. It was during this competitive outlet that one of Dad’s signature frisbee moves was born: the banana split. In which, your need to win overcomes you in such a way that you throw the frisbee, run down field to catch your own throw and in doing so knock over two small children at once— splitting them like a banana and scoring a touchdown. A small price to pay for victory.

In 2013 my brother William, or more endearingly called Willary or Phyllis by dad, joined our misfit crew. William grew and continues to grow into many of the best, most essential parts of dad. He exhibits constant questions and infinite curiosity that stupefies most, and enthralled dad. As he grew from a toddler into the big kid we know today, he witnessed and absorbed dad’s thirst for knowledge and dedication to the spectacular scientific unknowns, forming a unique bond between the two of them.

Seeking a new adventure, mom and dad decided to move to Denver in 2016: heeding the call of the mountains and following the opportunity to be closer to family. My dad’s hard-earned successful career allowed him to support our family’s aspirations and enabled him to be exceptionally generous. A trip to 7-11 became an opportunity to buy a stranger a meal, a run to the store became a chance to buy items for a refugee family in need; generosity served as an avenue to shape the mundane into something worth remembering. From time spent mentoring junior associates to gifting a sprinkler system for his parents, dad didn’t think twice about helping others.

Tom remained a student throughout his life, curious and questioning. As a voracious reader, he constantly sought new viewpoints through narrative works, philosophy, and contemporary theories. So many people learned from my dad, most of all me, Tess, and Will. He taught us by questioning, challenging, and stretching the edges of our minds. He invited his children from a very young age to challenge him, treating us as his peers. My dad’s philosophy centered on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable either/or situation.

In conversations with acquaintances or in close relationships, my dad strived to give permission and make room for all the parts of life: from the heroic to the painful and the messy. A discussion with him commanded authenticity and, at times, a seemingly impossible level of argumentative and psychological preparedness. He could identify and deconstruct a red herring or a straw man’s argument with ease; and in explanations he put the visceral into words. He was intellectually brilliant and reckless, but in such a way that he pushed people to seek more formative truths.

I believe dad would agree the concept of truth is only as powerful as the relentless pursuit of it. But then again, if I said this, he would be compelled to disagree and challenge me on it. To be challenged by my dad was to be loved by him. In this way he expressed his love for me and Tess frequently and at times it was mildly to majorly reckless.

Dad and mom taught us how to live imperfectly side by side with others. They both embraced each other’s individual ways of living, both uniquely provocative. Mom’s way of living involves planning extravagant parties with an abundance of people, dishes and disco balls that dad initially did not prefer. He ultimately accepted that, but in return lit off a concerning amount of fireworks— almost, but never quite setting the neighborhood on fire.

There is so much I will miss. Our slow Sunday mornings filled with cheesy eggs or breakfast hash Dad would make for us, all set to choral music or his beloved French Canadian radio station. Afternoons exercising the hereditary green thumb, a bike ride to jazz in the park in the evening, and at night enjoying the day’s yard work under our beloved ash tree while listening to more music— some new experimental songs but also some of his deep cuts. If the night air was cool enough he would build a crackling fire with an odd amount of intentionality to where the wood and flame fell. And maybe he would ask about school or the people in our lives or perhaps he would want to casually discuss the meaning of life. To be clear, the first time I can recall him asking me this I was 11 years old. And whatever my answer would be to one of those unanswerable questions he would, of course, disagree with me and reference multiple literary and historical works I had yet to read as his supporting documents. Many of which became my suggested reading list, which by now is at least two lifetime’s or an entire library worth of reading. Dad treated these ordinary seemingly banal moments of sitting and conversing with a confusing level of intensity and attention to detail. Although these argumentative conversations I had with him were limited, each one will continue to shape how I engage with the people in my life.

My dad reminded me, life is precious because it is finite; I will always be grateful for each and every small passing moment I had with my dad. Over the weeks following his death, I have felt unbearable aches of grief, and at most times I cannot comprehend how I am to continue in my dads physical absence. Ironically, dad may have been one of the biggest believers in deriving meaning from suffering. So in some obscure, authentic, messy, misfit, painful, and reckless way my family and I will grieve my father. From this inexplicable loss something undefinable, unexpected, and beautiful will come to be.

Dad did not just teach me how to merely survive, he taught me how to live recklessly— to push the boundaries. By that I mean to explore, to devote, to question, to give, to challenge, and to love in such a way that inspires life in each other.

Dad you were, are, and will always be a dream to me.