Thomas Milom

Thomas Milom (center) with his children

Thomas Milom is my father’s maternal grandfather. Everything I will write about him has been given to me second hand, as he made his departure to heaven in the September after I was born. I have heard about “Pappy Tom” my whole life, and by all accounts he was an amazing man who my Dad loved very much and had a huge amount of respect for. So much so, that before my Dad departed for heaven, it was important to him to write down some things about his grandfather for family to read. I will quote from what he wrote next.

“I want to tell you about some of the family… so you can know the stock you came from. Tom Milom was Mom’s dad and he came as near walking with God as any man I have known that was not a preacher.

Starting about age 12, he farmed more than 60 years without missing a day’s work or a church service. He never took any medicine- not even an aspirin- and he was never sick, never saw a doctor or went to a hospital until just before he died his children took him to a hospital.

He didn’t get sick until his sons got together and told him that he had worked hard long enough, and they were going to give him enough money so that he didn’t need to work any longer. From then on, he went down pretty fast.”

Apparently, it was not unusual at all for family and neighbors to come by for him to pray for them and it didn’t matter if it was day or night. If they had a need, he was available.

Quoting my Dad again: “Aunt Nora Mae, who was Uncle Herbert’s wife, said her Dad was real sick and Pappy came by in the evening and when he got ready to go, he told her Dad, it is like this, and started singing (the song, When We All Get to Heaven) and her Dad started singing with him.

Later, one of Pappy’s sons when by to see Mr. Jones and was there when he died at 8:00PM. He told them he was not going to tell Pappy until the next morning.

When he saw his Dad the next morning, he said, ‘Pappy, I need to tell you something’, and Pappy said ‘Do you want to tell brother Jones died at 8:00 last night?’ He said, ‘I saw a light go across the sky from the church to his house and I knew he died.’”

I also heard Pappy Tom’s daughter, Anna, my grandmother, tell about how much he loved to pray for people and how often people would come to his house, night or day, to ask if he would come and pray for someone who was sick.

The home of Thomas Milom. Year unknown.

Even though I never met my great grandfather, we share that in common. It gives me great joy to do the very same thing. I have personally witnessed how the God can transform an Intensive Care room in the hospital into a holy place of His Presence. Truly, nothing is too hard for Him Who is the Fountain of everything good!

I am so thankful for this man who literally laid a generational foundation of faith by loving Jesus first and walking with Him.

There is so much more about him to write, but that will be another blog post!