On July 20, 2020 our beloved Father, Tommy Charles Nickels, took his last breath in this world and took his first breath in Heaven at the age of 88.5 years old.
We are both heartbroken and relieved that he's seeing both his wife and his mother who, as he said, was waiting in the next room.
He was unable to live without our Mother and his wife of almost seventy years. He mourned her recent death like no other and only wanted to be with her. Today GOD answered his prayers.
He was born in Columbia, SC on September 7, 1931 to Vera Elizabeth Hall and James Allen Nickels Jr. He was preceded in death by both his parents, his wife Patsy Ruth Moore Nickels and his brother Lucius Hall Nickels (June), sisters, Betty Louise Akers (Ernest) and Margaret Ann Boone.
After the death of his mother from TB at the age of seven, he was put in foster care until he was sixteen. He would later meet his wife through one of his foster mothers while living in Warrior, Alabama. She convinced our mother to write him while he was away in the service.
Patsy Ruth Moore and Tommy were married in Yuma, AZ October 15, 1950. They lived in Chula Vista Ca where he was based in the Navy. They raised four children, Patricia Ann Zappone (Carl), Vera Alma Turner, Virginia Louise Perkins, and Wayne Blake Nickels (Linda). Eventually they would have eight grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.
He loved the Navy and proudly served from 1947 until 1967, serving in both the Korean and Vietnam War retiring as chief petty officer. He transferred to and served as a fire captain for the military civil service North Island air base for fifteen years before retiring back home to Warrior, Alabama.
He was the ultimate boy scout, always prepared and making sure everyone else was prepared and had what was needed. He loved the outdoors and was a avid hunter and fisherman. He loved working in his yard and put in long hours keeping it up, taking great pride in making it look like a private park.
God, in his great love made it possible to have victory over death, in spite of the fact that we must walk through it.
We can only imagine the joy he felt walking into the next room to the open arms of our mother and his family who were waiting to welcome him home.
Our parents were both born in 1931 three months apart and even in death they both died three months apart. Connected in a way that one couldn't be without the other. He left this world knowing he was loved by his children, knowing they surrounded him in his own room and held his hands as this world became dim and he went into the light of Christ.
As long as we remember a person they're not really gone. Their thoughts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us. We will miss his presence every day but knowing his broken heart has been healed heals his children. Death is nothing because we know that there is more and that our parents are waiting for us in the next room.