The grieving widow of a former Team USA triathlete who drowned during a family getaway on Shelter Island broke down Sunday as she paid tribute to the man she called her dream husband.
Spencer Korwin, a 38-year-old Manhattan husband and father of two, was honored at an emotional funeral service at Temple Israel on the Upper East Side, where loved ones remembered him as an energetic, devoted dad with a lifelong gift for mischief and laughter. His body was found Wednesday beneath the dock at The Pridwin Hotel.
“This is a nightmare. This is the worst day of my life. I can’t accept that this is real and that Spencer is not going to come home,” his wife, Carly Korwin, said through tears.
“Spencer was more than I could ever have dreamed of when it came to a husband, a father, and a friend. He was the best human I have ever met, and he was the love of my life. We had the most beautiful and special once-in-a-lifetime type of love, and we knew it,” she said, describing the depth of their bond.
“We always said forever isn’t long enough. And I will never be able to make sense as to why this incredible life we built together, filled with happiness and so much love, was ripped away from us in an instant.”
Carly said the tragedy also stole the future they had imagined together. The couple, who began dating years after both had graduated from Syracuse University, were raising two young daughters — Sadie, 4, and Colette, 1 — and had hoped to expand their family.
“He wrote me and the girls notes all the time and hung them around the apartment,” Carly said of her husband’s everyday gestures of love. “He was filled with surprises and hugs just because… he had automated texts set up twice a day just to remind me that he loves me, I’m a wonderful mom and wife.
“I know the girls will never stop missing him, and he will forever be their hero.”