June 16, 2001 -Peter
Briggs,in the midst of a fond and eloquent remembrance of his frequent
doubles opponent, USA World Team teammate and close friend for nearly a
quarter-century, soothingly proclaimed, "He is now at peace" while
soberly acknowledging that, "We all know that Tommy spent what now were
destined to be the last years of his life restlessly searching for
whatever of life's truths were eluding him."
Palmer Page paid tribute to the powerful strides and lethal stroke
production of his fallen youngest sibling while somberly lamenting the
tortuous battle Tom was for many years locked in a death grip with
against his most fearsome foe, namely schizophrenia, perhaps the most
difficult of the major psychiatric conditions either to diagnose or to
successfully treat.
The Reverend Albert Zug bravely declared to the more than 100 mourners
who congregated in the merciless mid-June heat and humidity to honor
one of the North American game's all-time most gifted natural athletes,
that what they were attending was ultimately a celebration of an
extraordinary life; but the Reverend Thomas McNutt perhaps more
accurately encapsulated the occasion's prevailing mood in a lengthy and
moving meditation during which, with a mixture of sadness and
wonderment, he ruefully cited the emotional polar opposites that
characterized a life suffused with moments of exceptional elation
followed shortly thereafter by intense periods of despair, of the
warmth of membership in a close-knit and talented family.combined with
what the Reverend perceptively referred to as "the chill of loneliness
and depression."
This dichotomy of theme permeated the entire memorial service for
Thomas Earl Page, which was held on the afternoon of June 15th, some
seven weeks after he collapsed and died on a lower Manhattan sidewalk
at the age of only 44.
Fittingly, the service was held at the Episcopal Academy in suburban
Philadelphia, where Tommy spent some of his happiest and most carefree
years and where, as a budding star in the Academy's redoubtable squash
program, his immense talent first emerged. It seemed fitting as well
that the turn-out consisted not only of contemporaries from that
innocent era but also of teachers, fans, mentors, colleagues, teammates
and rivals from all over the continent(including a substantial
contingent from Toronto, where Page enjoyed some of his greatest
accomplishments)and covering the entire age spectrum.
What everyone present did have in common was the quality of having had
their lives powerfully touched by Tommy's; many in fact had in their
own way done their best to reach out to him and somehow prevent his
life from spiralling out of control while there was still time to do
so.
Now that the opportunity for that turnaround to happen had passed,
through the intermingling of sadness, affection, rage, helplessness and
regret, the one unifying and collective desire that seemed to emerge
from the hymns, prayers, psalms and Bible passages that were interwoven
throughout a simple but beautiful ceremony was perhaps best summarized
by Peter Briggs when he gently but firmly announced that, "It is now
time for us all to make our collective and communal peace with Tommy."
For the multitude of attendees who were veterans or alumni of the WPSA
Pro Squash Tour on which Page made such a major impact for well over a
decade, this was the second time they had had to congregate to
commemorate the painfully premature passing of one of their own-twelve
years earlier, almost to the day (6/11/89), the life of another vibrant
WPSA star was abruptly truncated when Alex Doucas, nicknamed The Duke
and Merlin because of his magical touch, toppled off his boat and
drowned beneath the swift and strong currents of the St. Lawrence
River, 17 days short of his twenty-fifth birthday.
Briggs finished his remembrance with a poem by Henry Scott Holland,
whose primary message seemed to be that, even though one has died, his
friends should think of him in the same terms and feel the same way
about him as when he was living, "without the ghost of a shadow on it."
The poem ends with the comforting assurance that "I am but waiting for
you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner..all
is well."
This interpretation seemed to make as much sense as any other for a
loyal but clearly still grieving audience, many of whose members had
thrilled to the compelling exploits of a charismatic protagonist who
was able to push the world champion to the absolute brink but never
could conquer the enemy within, whose inner angels and demons were both
on stark, overwhelming and sometimes almost simultaneous display, and
who, like the Icarus figure of Greek mythology, experienced the wild
exhilaration of full-fledged flight but who, also like Icarus, flew
much too close to the sun.