Obituaries

"We Will Never Forget You"

Family and friends remember Toby Engel, the Hamden High School senior who died last weekend after falling at Sleeping Giant State Park.

 

Leonard Engel recalled a recent time when his son Toby came up to him and asked for a hug.

"I was doing something in the kitchen and he came over to me and said he wanted a hug," Engel recalled Thursday. "I stopped and hugged him, and he said, 'you know, that was a lousy hug,' so I hugged him again.

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The second one must have satisfied him because he smiled, Engel said.

"I will never forget that hug," he said, "or that smile."

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Engel was speaking during the funeral for his son Tobias Engel, or Toby, as he was known. Toby died last Sunday after falling from a cliff at . He was 18 and a senior at Hamden High School.

, where Toby attended Mass and was an alter server, was packed with family and friends -- many his Hamden High classmates, and many with tears streaming down their faces.

It is "unimaginably difficult" to understand how someone so young could be gone so quickly, Fr. Daniel Keefe said. He met Toby when the boy was in third grade, Keefe said.

"He wasn't blessed with a long life, but he made the best of the few years he was given," Keefe said.

Polite. Respectful. Smart. Pleasant. Responsible. Friendly. Good sense of humor. That's how Toby has been described, Keefe said.

For years he was an alter server at the parish, Keefe said, and at Masses he wasn't serving, he could be found in the same place in the third row pew with his dad. "He always knew he was blessed with the gift of faith from God," he said.

"They say that children should not die before their parents -- it's a violation of the natural law, it shouldn't happen," Leonard Engel said. "But we all know it does happen and this unspeakable tragedy has happened to us.

"I feel I was blessed with Toby for 18 years -- he was a special, precious gift," he said. 

"Eighteen years was not enough, and I'm going to miss what we would have shared," his brother Tom said, including his college career, his first job, his future wife.

"I wanted to see you in college -- I know you would have enjoyed it," he said.

"I wanted to see your love life blossom and your first job interview -- what do you mean, they didn't think your hair was cool?" he said of his brother's thick curls. "I know when you set your sites on something, your joy turned to passion, and I wanted to see what that would be.

"It's not often a big brother admits learning from a younger brother," he said. "Your love of life was infectious."

Toby had nine nieces and nephews who loved him dearly, he said, and anxiously anticipated his visits.

"Toby did not disappoint," he said.

The family has lost a hero and a buddy, he said.

"Your legacy that we will strive for is if we are not having fun, we are not living," he said.

Toby's other older brother Leonard said he was more like a big brother than an uncle to his nieces and nephews.

"He loved them and they loved him back," he said.

The outdoors was an important part of Toby's life, he said, and while he traveled as far as Maine to enjoy it, he had a special passion for Sleeping Giant. "It was in his backyard."


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