ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Cole Patrick Thomas was a pirate, a John Deere tractor driver, a knight, a fireman, a connoisseur of pancakes at McDonald's and hamburgers at ``Tess Tavern'' (Texas Tavern).
He once picked up a bumblebee - to look for its motor. He liked figuring things out.
Cole was Tom and Shari Thomas's only child, the grandson of Del. Vic Thomas. He was well-known among the patients at his mother's workplace, Catawba Hospital, for the chocolate-chip cookies he delivered at Christmas.
He was 3 years, 3 months and 1 week old on April 28, the day his family became ``the other people'' to whom tragedy always occurs.
Cole drowned outside his grandparents' house at Smith Mountain Lake while his mother sat on the deck reading the Sunday paper and his father lay daydreaming on the bed.
Five months later, the child's bedroom sits exactly the way he left it. His stuffed Elmo character still wears the Huggies diaper Cole attached to it (slightly skewed). His clothes still hang neatly in the closet, like a line of toy soldiers awaiting command.
His parents have taken the four letters of his name off his bedroom door. They've managed, tearfully, to clear the toys from the playhouse Shari's father, ``Pawpaw,'' built for Cole before the man died last year.
``I don't think Shari could bear it if she didn't know her father was up there taking care of Cole,'' says Gen Johnson, Cole's aunt. ``Cole and his Pawpaw were very close.''
The Thomases have memorized every detail of Cole's last weekend, replaying the scenes in their heads like a never-ending movie: the way Cole had begged his mom, a runner, not to race on Saturday, and she didn't; the way they'd taken a three-hour walk around the neighborhood with Buddy, their black lab; the way he enthused, ``This is such a nice family day.''
That Sunday, they ate pancakes at McDonald's, then drove to the lake house, where Cole fed the ducks popcorn and where he threw a typical 3-year-old fit over having to wear a life jacket on the boat. Tom rode Cole on the John Deere tractor - their favorite activity - until the boy's head began bobbing sleepily. Time for a nap.
As was his custom, Cole took all his clothes off (he called it ``sleeping in the buff''), then settled in on the couch with his juice, some potato chips and his favorite Winnie the Pooh video. He visited his mom on the deck once, snuggling up to her and saying, ``Mommy, this sun feels SO good. Are we getting a suntan, Mommy?''
Tom remembers the final sounds: Cole's chip bag crinkling open and shut, his joyful giggling at Tigger's follies. And then, a few minutes later, the shout of Shari, panic-stricken: ``Where's Cole?!''
Tom ran to the lake, scanned it, then turned to run back to the house. ``I'd started to run back up the hill when it was like something grabbed me and told me to go back,'' he recalls.
He found his son floating face-down in a foot of water. He figures the boy sneaked out a side door, ran toward the lake, then looked up at the deck to see if his mom was watching. He figures Cole fell on the stone embankment while looking back, was knocked unconscious immediately, then fell into the water.
``I was sitting with a full view of the lake the whole time,'' Shari says. ``I can't figure out for the life of me how I missed him.''
They've tried not to beat themselves up with should-haves and what-ifs. ``I've accepted that it was his time,'' Tom says, his voice trembling. ``Unless you do accept that, there's no way you could make it through this.''
When a kindness results from Cole's senseless death, it's a phenomenon Tom and Shari call Cole Power: More than 250 flower arrangements were delivered to the sick kids' ward at Community Hospital after the funeral; more than 200 sympathy cards arrived from people they don't even know. A scholarship through the Junior League's Project Hope has been established in his name.
``A lot of people have looked at their children differently. They've hugged them one more time, families have gotten closer,'' Shari says. ``We've renewed friendships, met new people.''
Tom and Shari recently visited Joe-Joe Eller, the 3-year-old who lost his foot in a lawn mower accident last month. ``We took him some of Cole's toys. We wanted to give the father this message: Accidents do happen and it doesn't make you a bad person.
``There's a tremendous amount of guilt because Cole was our responsibility. But accidents do happen, even to good parents. We had a wonderful family, a wonderful life - a year ago.''
In their struggle to wade through the grief, Tom and Shari have tried to find meaning in Cole's death. But the waters have been muddy, the current swift.
Sometimes they feel themselves suffocating. So they grasp for clues.
Like the little ditty Cole was heard singing two days before his death:
Jay Vargas
Tom and Shari
Jesus loves me
I am Cole.
Cole's baby sitter, a neighbor, his family - everyone had heard him sing it, but no one knew who Jay Vargas was. A few weeks after the funeral, a colleague of Shari's did an Internet search that led to a phone call to a man in Sacramento, Calif.
To a grandfather named Jay Vargas, who, it turns out, is a highly decorated Marine officer, a Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, a Vietnam War hero, one of 48 people to receive the prestigious Congressional Medal of Honor and a very nice man. He's been corresponding with Tom and Shari ever since.
Maybe Cole had seen the man on TV. Maybe there's no connection at all. Tom and Shari would like to confirm the identity of this character in Cole's song, but they doubt they'll solve the mystery.
For now it's as senseless as a bumblebee without a motor, as a plate of armor without its knight.
But if nothing else, it is Cole Power. And that is better than the silence of an only child's dark, toy-filled room.
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Courtesy Thomas family Cole Thomas at Halloween lastby CNByear. color