Thomas E. Hynes

No Moment Worth Missing
To Thomas E. Hynes, an account manager for the Vestek division of Thomson Financial, every moment was a golden opportunity and every person he met was sure to be a friend. Was somebody going somewhere, to a bar, a Yankees game, a wedding out of town? Mr. Hynes wanted to be there, too, and invariably, he was. He set his alarm clock early, "to get into the day, because the day was going to be happy, it was going to be glorious, and it was going to be fun," said his mother, Fran.

He grew up in Pelham, N.Y., playing ice hockey with his older brother, John, as well as soccer and, eventually, baseball. "When he was a senior in high school, he found out the baseball team was going to Florida for spring training, and he wanted to go to Florida," said his father, Bill. "So he tried out for the team, and he made it."

He met his wife, Carolyne, during the St. Patrick's Day parade in 1996. He proposed to her in 1997, beside the tree in Rockefeller Center. It was Dec. 19, his birthday, and "he told me he wanted to propose to me on his birthday because he wanted to give himself the best gift he could think of," Mrs. Hynes said.

He had bright blue eyes and a broad smile. When the sky is the right color these days, his parents call it "a Thomas sky."

"I feel Tom was an angel among us," his wife said. "He was so cheerful and loving and understanding and generous and kind, and nobody could light up a room like he could." They had just bought a house in Norwalk, Conn.

He would have been 29 years old today. Their baby is due in April.