“It was a little more Venus than Bacchus” when asked to explain a visit to a bar in his earlier years.
Thomas Turner Bryans, formerly of Cazenovia and Syracuse, never lost a fight or surrendered a battle, but he has moved on. Born on Oct. 8, 1964, he passed away on March 29, 2019, at the age of 54. He had a rare auto immune disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis and was a candidate for a liver transplant. His team at the New York Presbyterian Columbia University Liver Transplant Center truly understood Thomas’s rare gifts and fought for him until the end with skill, care and compassion.
Thomas was a scholar and a poet. He possessed thousands of books, first in print and, when that became unmanageable, on e-readers. Not just any books – his books were literature, poetry, philosophy, history and religion. He studied literature exhaustively, including the works of Shakespeare and James Joyce, (whose birthday he celebrated each year). He wrote volumes and volumes of poetry. His mind and memory were prodigious. His vocabulary was vast. Conversations with Thomas were sprinkled with literary references and analogies, along with sports, movie and television history and music ranging from classical to pop.
Above all else, Thomas loved his family and his friends. He was a son, a big brother, a cousin and an uncle. He was kind and generous to a fault. He loved finding just the right book for the right person and could never wait until Christmas morning to confer his gifts, and his gifts were almost always books.
Thomas was pre-deceased by his father, David F. Bryans, and is survived by his mother Bonnie, sisters, Amanda and Emily, and brother, Ned, his niece and nephew Alexis and Daniel Miskelly, as well as his Aunt Roxanne Kelley and cousins Eliza Lewis and Sara Mortland, Aunt Tonja and Uncle Steve, Aunt Sara and Uncle Jerry Gault, and cousins Steve and Ellen Curry, and cousins John Bryans and Sarah Bongey.
A memorial service will be held at a later date. To leave a message of sympathy for the Bryans family, please visit michaelebrownfuneralservices.com.
