Progress down an arduous trail

Mom called last night after reading the previous post, stirred by what she had read - grieving, too. Remembering Timm has been a door into Timm's life for her as it has for me, offering a look into the life of a brother and son who had spent his entire adult life far from his family home. As a brother who feels he shrifted Timm of so much time and attention growing up, I feel that what I do here is small amends, tending this memorial as best as I can. Making Timm intimate to us as we say goodbye to him.

I try to keep a middle ground, trying to portray Timm as honestly as I can without opening old wounds in so doing. The balance is delicate. In offering Timm's reverie of Christmas after reading mine, I thought it interesting how family histories can be seen so differently from individual vantage points. Dad, Mom, Will, me, Molly, Timm, we all grew up in the same family, we share a lot of the same stories, yet if each of us were asked to tell our family history, you would think six different families were being related. Maybe it's the fault of words, implying a consensus of meaning which proves very different from the inside. Say the word "family," and find out how frighteningly far apart we all truly are.

Anyway, Mom said it was especially hurtful to read that Timm felt his last family Christmas was at age five. She and him would share twelve more Christmases as he grew up; she said she had tried hard every year to provide him with some measure of the holiday.

As we talked, I said Timm obviously never meant his private thoughts on Christmas to be known to her; his journal was his most intimate confidante, and he shared things in which he would have been greatly ambivalent about publishing -- were he alive, I'd add. He would not have committed thoughts to writing unless he meant that some day they would be shared.

Also, Timm's earlier journals -- the ones that I have -- are crucibles of pain for Timm, yet they are also an essential part of his recovery. He wrote through his agonies, laying his heart bare to his God. Frequently in his journals there are asterisks, often in a different color ink; it seems that he mined his journals, reading back and thinking about what was happening to him. Perhaps he meant to include passages in later writings.

Seven years after recording his reflections about Christmas, Timm wrote in his journal a year-end/year-beginning entry which shows the process Timm was learning in his recovery, what we in AA call "name it, claim it, let it go."

I include this passage because it shows -- to my satisfaction, anyway -- that Timm was learning and growing and becoming rooted in his life. Timm, for all of his difficulties, was coming to know his heart's contents to his heart's content.

Timm in Holland, date unknown.

Wednesday, January 4, 1994

I was shocked & just a little dismayed to discover that I haven't written in six weeks. Time to do a year-end wrapup but first I need to record a few things. First I'm working for a rental car company, but not for long. I got offered a job yesterday at a treatment center - ASAP Treatment services - working as a therapist ... Pretty glad to get out of the car biz. Mikki & I are still together. Had a wonderful Christmas (season) - it lasted for two weeks - but from Christmas to New Year's it was a nightmare - fighting. On the 1st I celebrated 2 years (of AA sobriety). Good stuff.

Now for the 1993 wrap-up. '93 was a rough year - lots of change & pain. I went through 4 cars (I'm on #5), two of which were totaled, recovering from two different wrecks; I moved 7 times had three or four jobs (and went six months without work); lost just about everything, and started on a long road of rebuilding. It was a year of feeling squirrelly & watching sobriety unfold.

In late August I made the comment that I'm feeling like I'm living somebody else's life, and I think this is the crux of the matter. So much of the old life had to die this past year & I was left having to learn how to face a new life.

When I got offered the job yesterday I wasn't terribly overjoyed or excited - just in awe. Life is unfolding. I guess there is a certain amount of fear in that, since it isn't me creating a life, b ut letting it unfold.

I wrote on the next entry about an incident at church where I felt that the bond with the old life was broken. Instead of scurrying for security, it left me once again having to learn to life a different life. there is a certain amount of sadness in this - death always brings a note of grief. But it's strange how I feel that I'm being whisked along, out of the valley of my death, to the meadow of life. I can almost see myself in a sleigh drawn by the Father & I'm sitting in the back seat, wind whipping through my hair & filled with awe and wonder. We're going somewhere, I just don't know where.

As far as the year ahead, one thing that I've been thinking about is Teen Missions. I laid a fleece before the Lord in late November that if in four weeks I still had a burning desire to go, I'd look into it. Well, four weeks passed and nothing changed. So the plan right now is to go to a three-day conference on Jan. 20-23 on this. I'm considering both summer staff & full time work.

This really raises a dilemma within me. Part of my desire is to settle here. I may have the opportunity purchase a house in the spring with my roommate & continue to more along here. Or possibly go to Fuller Seminary in the fall.

I've written much in the pasts year about the ministry & I guess it's really come down to two desires of mine: 1) share Jesus and 2) to have a ranch. I don't know how, when, where, why or any of the other pertinent questions. I just know for a fact that these are the two bottom-line desires that are in my heart.

Let me close this entry by relaying a dream I had a few weeks ago. I dreamt that I was asleep and Jesus came to me and asked me to go for a walk with Him & so I did. I really don't remember seeing anything - but I knew where we were and what I felt. We walked through my future. All of the places we went were the nameless desires that are hidden in my heart. They were all there and we walked through them. When I awoke I had a peace beyond anything I had ever known. All I know is that those indescribable sensations of my heart are there, waiting to unfold. And they will, but only as I follow Jesus.

What a year.