Remembering Timm O'Cobhthaigh: Looking up in wonder at what falls

"Coastal Waterfall" by Timm O'Cobhthaigh

There are large gaps in the history I have of Timm. There is a blank expanse of the years between the time he left from Mom's house in Winter Park around 1980 and the journals I have of Timm dating from 1987 - an expanse dotted by a few pictures and memories. Timm came back to Winter Park in 1981 after his near-fatal accident in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He moved around a lot, checking in with Mom or Dad in phone calls which often began, "I'm OK, but you wouldn't believe what happened ..." Timm's complete medical record is hopelessly scattered among many locations and bills which he never paid. Timm's address and phone number was crossed out and re-entered so many times in our address book that pencil entries became the norm. Indiana, California, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon: Timm kept in motion for years, working odd jobs, finishing up his college degree, attempting to get a foothold on some kind of career.

As one who also moved around a lot in his youth, I know the dots of such a mobile history are hard for anyone else to connect. (As I've said before, Timm and I are twins separated by 6 years of birthing.) Many friends along the way were left to wonder whatever happened to me. (Then again, more may have been quite relieved to see so errant a presence pass on to become someone else's problem.)

One account of that toll can be found in Timm's AA 4th Step inventory, where one lists all the people they had hurt in the name of making amends and righting wrongs. I do not share details from that inventory - that is a private account, meant to be between Timm's honest self and his Maker - but I do say here that Timm there listed the fragmentary dots of his long wandering, people whom he had hurt in one way or another in the name of getting his needs met first, whom he had shorted in affection or attention, blighted as he was by his own hurts.

I've made such lists myself in my own recovery, and I know it is an important reconciliation with one's own past; the act of writing it down and then sharing its contents with a trusted other - usually a sponsor - provides a measure of forgiveness, both of oneself and of others, which opens a way through the destuctive clutter inside so one can experience the sunlight of the spirit.

Timm's story became known and coherent when he himself took account of it; when he began to recover from his addictive addlements; when he settled down; when he began to create an established body of work - his photos -- in which his needs could find safe expression and become a healing. His latter years are much more accountable; it hasn't been difficult to tell that part of the story. His friend Ken had 16 years of constant contact with Timm. His co-workers with Congreswoman Hooley and associations in the photography business had much to tell about how Timm went about his work. His girlfriend Christie has had much to say about Timm's passions and worries and earnestness. Our family saw a lot more of Timm in his last years.

Timm's early and latter history are accountable and have been mostly retold here; but the middle part remains mostly an unmapped expanse.

Pastor Darwin Dunten and family today.

So it was with great appreciation when I saw an email yesterday from Darwin Dunten, now a pastor in Findlay, Ohio, who met Timm when they were both attending Fort Wayne Bible College in the early 1980s, Timm's first destination in his long journey away from Florida and westward to Oregon.

Darwin said that he and Timm became good friends at Ft. Wayne Bible College. Timm's compassion and sense of play both show themselves in the following picture which Darwin attached to his email:

Darwin writes, "(Timm) knew that I was a backward farm boy from Indiana that was very awkward around the opposite sex. So on my birthday, he arranged a little ceremony in the cafeteria of FWBC. He arranged two females to give me a kiss after the entire cafeteria sang happy birthday to me."

Timm and Darwin remained friends after Timm moved westward from Ft. Wayne Bible. Timm returned from California where he had contracted hepatitis and stayed with Darwin and his family for a summer. Here's a photo of Timm with Darwin's family taken from back then:

The next couple of photos are also from around this time (1984). One day, Darwin writes,

We called each other on the phone and found a half waypoint and met ((at Cumberland Falls, Kentucky)). We climbed over the fence and walked behind the waterfalls and spent hours there. A park ranger started yelling at us to get out of there, but we acted like we could not see him and just sat there and enjoyed God's creation. I have never forgotten the beauty of that experience.

Here we have earlier evidence of Timm's love of waterfalls - and of taking pictures of them. A dot represented by these pictures now connects to the whole.

Some years later, Timm was best man at Darwin's wedding. The following picture was in one of the photo albums found in Timm's apartment after he died, the one begun by Mom (with childhood pictures (she made up one for each of us kids back in '87 or so), further filled with pictures by Timm.

Darwin continues,

When Timm was getting married, he asked me to come out to be part of his wedding. Unfortunately, my wife was pregnant and it didn't work out. We lost touch after that. I knew he was out west but I didn't know where. When the Internet net became popular, I tried to Google him and could never find him. I never knew he had changed his name. Last spring, I Googled "Cohea" again in the image section and came across your dad's retreat in Pennsylvania and remembered the stories Timm shared about it. So, I contacted your dad and he gave me Timm's email address and new name. For the next two weeks, we played phone or email tag with each other, then he never returned a call or email. A month later, your mom called me because my phone number was on his cell phone. She informed me of what had happened. I was shocked and very saddened.

I can share a lot of stories about Timm during his college years. How he hid his "dip" from the administration. How we expanded each other spiritually. How he made the mistake of sharing about the settlement from his accident with the school. He soon became everyone's friend. My first and only ski experience was when Timm was in Colorado. I flew (for the first time) out to see him during spring break. Come to think of it. I did a lot of firsts because of Timm.

I just wish we could have made that connection before he died.

I am pastoring in Findlay, Ohio. Been here for about 8 years. www.findlayfirstub.org

I enjoyed reading some of your blog. For me it is the opposite. It fills in some of the blanks after FWBC. I will do some more checking. If I find some more photos, I will send them. Some may have been destroyed in the flood that Findlay had a year and a half ago.

Thanks, Darwin, for the memories. For helping to make Timm's history a little more complete.