Wednesday, September 6, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
23
Of a certain age
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
The eagle’s-eye view from
the property is awe-inspiring.
The energy of the surround-
ings is healing for those who
come seeking rest and solace.
Tom’s Rest, located on a
hill six miles east of Sisters,
was created for that very
purpose – to offer a place of
respite from busy lives. With
the untimely death of Tom
Edwards at age 61, his wife,
Cheryl, expanded its mis-
sion to also providing a safe
place for grieving hearts to
share their losses and learn to
integrate them into their lives
going forward.
Tom and Cheryl met dur-
ing their junior year in high
school in Michigan, when
Tom cleaned the wind-
shield of Cheryl’s car at the
local service station where
he worked every day after
school.
“I’ve never had such clean
windows in my life,” Cheryl
remembered with a smile.
They married right out of
high school at ages 18 and
19 and shared 42 years of life
together, persevering through
the lean early years, experi-
encing the loss of a daughter
and health concerns of one of
their sons.
“Tom always had the
strength to go to the next
thing,” Cheryl said.
Tom’s mother had left him
as a child with relatives, later
marrying and raising another
family. He was passed around
among family members,
often sleeping on dilapidated
couches. In high school, he
lived on the top floor of low-
income housing in Detroit,
surrounded by soot from the
Ford Motor Company factory
across the street.
Cheryl never heard Tom
complain about his difficult
childhood. Despite being
abandoned by his mother, at
Christmas Tom would take
gifts to her. He helped out
her other family, providing
rides for his half-brothers and
doing special things like tak-
ing them to the circus.
In Tom’s heart, there
wasn’t room for resentment.
He was always interested in
others and what he could do
for them. Throughout their
life together, Tom never tired
of telling Cheryl, “I just want
to make you happy.”
On the dash of her car,
Cheryl has a little figure of a
man, with outstretched arms,
that was on the shift of Tom’s
first car. Tom always mim-
icked the little man as he
stretched out his arms, tell-
ing Cheryl, “I love you this
much.”
Having been the first per-
son in his family to gradu-
ate from high school, Tom’s
drive for a better life led him
to enlist in the Air Force to
help him get a college educa-
tion. His time loading bombs
on aircraft during the Viet
Nam war years left him with
partial hearing loss and ring-
ing in his ears. Again, Cheryl
never heard Tom complain,
despite no help from the
Veteran’s Administration for
30 years.
“That’s who he was,”
explained Cheryl.
Right before Tom died, the
VA had finally granted him
disability benefits.
Tom did get that college
education, earning a master’s
degree in engineering and
another master’s in human
resources. The Edwards
came west to Sherwood,
Oregon where they lived for
30 years while Tom worked
for Daimler Trucks North
America in Portland.
“I came kicking and
screaming,” admitted Cheryl.
Once she saw the moun-
tains and beaches, however,
she was smitten. They hiked,
biked, and kayaked.
“We saw every inch of the
state, most of it on our bikes,”
Cheryl said.
They participated in a
cross-country bike ride from
Seattle to Washington, D.C.
to raise money for a charity
supporting research into a
blood-clotting disorder that
Cheryl experienced. While
cycling, they discovered the
“Showers Program” where
people along the route offer
free showers, camping,
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clothing, whatever they have
to share. Tom and Cheryl’s
experiences planted the seed
for a place where cyclists
could come to camp, rest,
shower, and make repairs.
They purchased property
in Central Oregon and, for six
years on weekends and vaca-
tions, they cleared the land,
put in a road, well, and septic
system, moved a cabin to the
property and refurbished it,
and installed solar panels to
support being off-grid. Tom
built a barn outfitted with
equipment for working on
bikes.
There is an RV with com-
plete hook-up and a gathering
room where campers and vis-
itors can meet, talk, and eat.
There is space for tents and
an outside shower for camp-
ers. Working alongside Tom,
Cheryl said she learned how
to do so many things.
“Not a day goes by I don’t
use something he taught
me. Everything I do, I hear
him telling me how,” she
recounted.
When Tom retired, they
planned to move to the prop-
erty, build themselves a house
to live in, and run the camp.
He did retire in 2015, with
PHOTO PROVIDED
Cheryl and Tom on the evening before leaving on their cross-country
bike ride from Seattle to Washington, D.C. in support of charity.
plans to do some part-time
work from home so they
could move.
Boxes were all packed in
the garage ready to move and
the Sherwood house was on
the market. Tom had a routine
doctor’s appointment and on
his way home, he called to
ask Cheryl, “Do you need
anything?” – something he
often did.
When he returned home,
he went through his regular
ritual with Ardee, their yel-
low Labrador, chasing him
around the house and then
giving him the mail to carry
in. Tom pulled out a bouquet
of flowers from behind his
back.
“These are for you,” he
told Cheryl.
He offered to put them
in a vase, asking which one
Cheryl wanted him to use.
The vases were all packed
already so Tom found some-
thing to put them in. Cheryl
was focused on some work
she was doing and not really
paying close attention,
when she heard Tom say,
“Something’s wrong. Get me
some water. I can’t breathe.”
Cheryl looked up to see
See TOM’S REST on page 25
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