By Thomas A. Parmalee
Whoa dude, you won.
And that is the mantra you could use to describe the life of Tom Hester Jr. – that is, until he lost.
Hester heard someone say those exact words, in fact, after he attended a concert featuring Bob Weir’s band Ratdog, which was performing at the Trump Marina in Atlantic City.
“Theresa was always up for a road trip, so we got two tickets and headed down to AC,” Hester wrote in his book “Beauty on the Balcony: Thoughts and Essays on Grief and Theresa.”
“The ballroom was tiny. Almost as if Weir had been booked there by mistake. Only a hundred or so people could fit, and there was no actual stage,” he wrote.
But after the show ended, Hester joined his wife in piling back onto the casino floor. He had a quarter in his pocket and a slot machine was immediately across from the ballroom doors – just a matter of a few feet.
“I slid the coin into the slot and pulled the levers – and the bell starts ringing … and ringing … and ringing,” he recalled.
As the dollar signs on the machine rose higher and higher, that’s when Hester heard those words from someone behind him: Whoa dude, you won.
It’s surely the same thing that people thought all the time when looking on the outside in at Hester and his life.
I remember thinking it when I was a cub reporter at The Times of Trenton and Theresa would stop and visit Hester in the bustling newsroom.
While everyone was telling me not to get into journalism and making jokes that I was taking a vow of poverty, I could look over at Mr. Hester, who was probably more introverted and quieter than even me and think: This guy did it. He’s just a normal guy who really enjoys his job, and he’s somehow with her.
The conclusion, of course, was clear: If he could do it, I could follow in his footsteps and do something similar.
To Hester’s great credit, he always clearly knew that luck had smiled upon him, and he never took Theresa for granted. They built a great life together, having two incredible daughters along the way.
In his book, Hester reveals what it was like living such a charmed life with such an amazing person – who died at age 55 after a short battle with cancer.
Theresa spent her career advocating for women and families, working for the New Jersey Division on Women before working with the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and then the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. Her work focused on improving services and policies for domestic and sexual violence victims.
For funeral homes that have a grief library or know families struggling with having lost someone to cancer or who are preparing for an imminent death, then “Beauty on the Balcony” will certainly help them realize they are not alone.
Hester, now a single father of two teenage daughters, shares a brutally honest account of the guilt he felt when his wife died and how much of a struggle it has been to pick up the pieces and keep charging on.
But at its core, the book is about an incredible person who did so much for others – a book that anyone will want to read, not just someone navigating tremendous loss. Other than seeing her pass by in a newsroom, I never had the chance to know Theresa, but after reading Hester’s book, I sure wish I had.
Despite the incredible grief that Hester is going through and the loss that will never go away, he surely knows that while he may have lost his wife, he has not truly lost. He still has the memories that he will cherish and his two daughters. He also had about the best winning streak ever. Sadly, such streaks always come to an end … but he still came out a winner.
Proceeds from book sales will be donated to women’s shelters, according to Hester. “Also, I will match all royalties to double the donation,” Hester wrote on his Facebook page.
Find the book page on Amazon.com – the cost is only $5.
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