Four months gone

Timm with his dog Tippy in Winter Park, ca. 1974.

Timm passed away four months ago today. Seems more like a year or years ago. Many of the potent particulars of his life and death have been resolved – memorial service conducted in Oregon, loose work ends resolved, post-mortem amateurishly completed here, his house gratuity and IRA savings at last paid out to Mom and Dad (just two weeks ago, after months of wrangling with House payroll bureaucrats), a captsone has been carved and Timm’s ashes interred beneath it in the chapel as well as in the dirt of Cnoc Cobhain at Columcille. Two thousand of the approximately five thousand slides in his archive have been scanned. Some form of book will evolve from the postings of this memorial blog. Mom talks of putting in a memorial stone for Timm next to the memorial bench put up for Nicholas Tims (who died in a car accident last year at age 23). Timm’s girlfriend Christie plans to scatter the last remainder of Timm’s ashes in a wild nook of Oregon which Timm lived. Mom attends grief counseling sessions which she says is helping. Will says he has said his goodbye to Timm. Dad ruminates about Timm as he walks Columcille and sits in the chapel. I'm not sure what Molly does. I write these posts.

A third of a year to get this far in saying these farewells to Timm, and it’s hard to say how much of the work has been completed. April 18 seems far away; April 17 is far further, when Timm was going about his life in Oregon, talking with us about looking around for another job, of moving to Belize to get away from all the rain, or perhaps moving somewhere closer to the family, between Pennsylvania and Florida … When he was singing happily in church and reaching out to help so many, when he was planning to get married and had planted a small garden outside his apartment, tending those frail plants the way he was planting himself so resolutely into his life.

So much was beginning on April 17. So much ended the next day. For me, tending this memorial site has shown me how very much we lost when Timm passed away.

We love and miss and remember you, Timm.

Timm at the Hellingers - our cousins & aunt & uncle who live in Orlando -- in 1972 or so. Doesn't look like he had much luck fishing. Our dog Shep in the lower right corner.

That's Timm at the right, romping with his cousins Mark and Kitty Hellinger, the three of them trying to tackle brother Will. Probably 1972 or so.

A dapper Timm at aged 12. Is he visiting Dad? The painting in the background was painted by Dad back in the '60s when we lived in Evanston.

Timm with Molly and Albert, who lived with us in Chicago. Probably 1975?

Timm on the dock of the Hellingers' when he was in high school, probably 1978.

Timm with Dad at Columcille in the 1980's.

Timm with Mom, around 1990.