It was a fine day in Salem ...

This photo was taken by Timm in March 2007, but I've been saving it for this day because it makes me think so much of him on his last day.

He apparently used himself as a model for the shot. By putting himself in the middle of it, what was he trying to say?

April 17, 2008, was another fine day in Salem, bright and sunny and exceptionally warm for that time of the year, although the forecast said that rainy cold weather would return by the weekend.

I don't know if Timm began his morning at an AA meeting - there was an early-morning meeting he often attended, one or several times a week. But a memory card left in the basket at his memorial went thus: "In little time I knew Timm, I always loved his spirit. He was a great individual and will be missed. I was fortunate to have held his hand in closing an A.A. meeting the day before his death. I love him."

Around 7 a.m. Timm listened to a few tracks from Pat Matheny's 1981 album As Witchita Falls, So Falls Witchita - "Ozark," "September Fifteenth," "It's For You" -- on the iTunes application on his laptop. According to Christie, he was probably at the local Starbucks, sipping an American coffee with soy milk. He apparently preferred that place because of the older crowd and was it was easy to zip over to work from there.

He'd only downloaded the album in January, but according to the play count on the application, he'd been listening to it a lot. He'd even downloaded the guitar ligature to "September 15." Timm hadn't been able to play his guitar much of late due to a sore thumb, but we found his guitar case packed with sheet music he obviously was working on. Odd how Timm had so many physical difficulties with music -- deaf in one ear, the sore thumb which made it so hard to play -- and yet he seem to swim in it. So many of the songs I found on his i-Tunes application were the sort of thing I was listening to 10 years ago, when I would have been close to his age.

(That those were the last tunes played on Timm's laptop I deduced from the play dates on the application, stuff I began finding when I first surveyed the contents of his laptop over the weekend after he died.)

Oddly (as I have mentioned here before), "September 15" was my favorite song on that Pat Matheny album when I began listening to it in Orlando, just after it came out in the fall of 1981. Timm was working out west in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but in October he got into a near-fatal car accident and returned home to Orlando for a few months to recuperate there at Mom's house where I was also living. We never talked about the Matheny album that I can recall but he surely heard it playing in the house.

Christie says Timm would probably have been online on his laptop (using the wi-fi connection there at Starbucks) to check out locations for their weekend together. He was like that, she said, taking care of all of the details. He would just pick her up and off they would go on the day(s) he had planned.

He was also planning to work on Saturday, doing freelance photography of a Brewfest and the Grants Pass/Josephine County Chamber board-jobs both for Mount Angel Publishing. With the weather souring, it wasn't a sure thing. He had emailed Paula Mabry at MAP with his concerns.

Other things, too:

- Timm was helping to plan a men's retreat at his church in early May. There are emails back and forth with Pastor Chris Haydon and Ken Rush going over details and scheduling planning meetings. A document on Timm's laptop lists meeting notes from April 11, with a note to "use reg plates and not paper - better stewardship" and listing a tentative schedule of events. Timm would assist in the section on mentorship, "having trained mentors and learned something about boundaries" -- the limits, I guess, of how far a mentor can and should go in helping another. He and Pastor Chris had "developed a spectrum of Christian development from non-believer to mature-ish Christian."

- He was planning ahead. In a 4/16 memo to Pastor Haydon Timm wrote, "I'm already thinking about the fall event - I suggest we go away for a weekend in October/November and to start planning as soon as the May event is done. First meeting in late May and then meet once a month through the summer. First order - id location, cost, theme and which weekend. Second, nail the speaker down by July. I'd be willing to take the lead again ..." Pastor Haydon had replied: "Sounds great, Timm. Ron sounds fabulous- really passionate about this. Thanks for the insight. Peace." That was probably Haydon's last communication with Timm.

(Unfortunately, I don't have much corroboration from Timm's Oregon family on any of this - almost none have replied to my recent requests for stuff to post on Timm. So I gather much of the information used in this post from conversations with them last year, emails I've been able to retrieve and documents on his computer.)

- Timm was tweaking photographs, perhaps for active clients or to upload to his photography website, which served both as portfolio and a way for clients to download completed work. The last photo Timm worked on was a shot of a young couple at the Eugene Farmer's Market. It was taken three years before, but he was doing something on the file at 11:10 a.m. April 17 - tweaking colors and hue, or perhaps preparing to upload it to his photography site. From the data on his laptop and external hard drive, that was the last photo Timm touched.

"Eugene Farmer's Market" - the last photo Timm was known to work on.

* * *

Then it would have been off to work for him. I don't have any record of what he did on his last day in Congresswoman Darlene Hooley's Salem office, but co-worker Ted Piper did send me this fine note yesterday about events occurring on Wednesday, April 16:

Exactly a year ago today was the last day I saw Timm. I had a flight to the east coast the morning of the 17th as this was my big move to DC. It was a Wednesday and I worked the morning and we had a potluck in the afternoon just because we all enjoyed doing that and it was sort of a "good-bye Piper" lunch.

Timm came into my cubicle that morning, his usual smiling self and inquired about how my packing was going and if I was nervous. I remember going to the store with Jeannie to get salad and cookies and I remember Timm was in charge of getting the corn bread from down the street. We all sat down for lunch and Timm cut into the corn bread. During the process, he cut his finger on the knife but didn't notice it at first until it was point out to him. I can remember the look on his face when he realized that he was cut. He smiled and laughed it off nonchalantly, almost as if it was not important to him at all. He excused himself, bandaged his finger and came back to join us. I remember thinking that if it were me, it would have been followed by a string of curse words and I would have been incredibly annoyed.

As I was packing up a few things in my desk, I remember having a conversation with Timm about the casework that I had been assisting him with, around 30 cases or so. I sheepishly spoke about how I felt bad, turning them back over to Timm as his workload was already huge. He flashed a smile and again, nonchalantly said, "no problem guy, you've got bigger things ahead, don't worry about it."

I only worked a half day on April 16th and before I left, Timm offered to stop by my house in Silverton every now and then to snap photos and send them to me to make sure the renters were keeping the lawn up to par. I gladly accepted as I knew if anything else, it would keep him and I in touch. Timm was the last person I said bye to that day. I gave him a handshake/hug and I remember he looked at me and said, "Take care of yourself, guy ..." before I walked out the door.

It seems to make sense to me now that Timm seemed very calm and collected. I remember talking with Kari and Jeannie week later about how Timm was on that Thursday ((April 17)). They said he was very happy and care free, laughing and cracking jokes seemingly with out a care.

There is a song that always makes me think of Timm, I heard it about a week after his death. It's from the movie Big Fish if you have seen it; done by Eddie Vedder called "Man of the Hour." A fitting tribute to a great man that saw the beauty in everything, taken from us too soon. Feel free to add it to my post if you feel its appropriate.

Timm with fellow staffers in Congresswoman Hooley's Salem, OR office. I believe that's Ted Piper to the left.

* * *

How comforting it is hear that Timm was in such a calm state in his last days on the job. A blue-skies state of mind, so in tune with the fine weather of those days.

* * *

After work Timm went for a run. He hadn't been able to do much exercise over the spring due to a number of physical ailments. He had gone to a Dr. Paul Weaver in the fall for help with pains that stretched from his toes to his neck. Timm's accident-prone nature, combined with his love of all of those outdoor activities which the accident-prone should avoid, resulted in much of these ailments.

But there was something else wrong which was not diagnosed properly in time. He'd had high blood pressure and was taking medication for it. He was taking Ritalin for his attention-deficit problems (stemming, he thought, from the head injuries he suffered in the auto accident back in 1981). Out running in late January of 2008, he felt something catch in his chest, as if he'd inhaled something that had lodged in his lungs. Dr. Weaver thought there might have been a small hole in his lung from the event, prescribed antibiotics and scheduled a chest x-ray. No attempt was made to examine Timm's heart. Timm was weak for several weeks, finding it difficult to sleep laying down, but slowly he recoverd. Dr. Weaver also prescribed Singulair, an allergy medication, attributing some of Timm's breathing problems to allergens flowing about in the spring weather. A chest CAT scan which might have caught the brewing problem was cancelled by Timm because he said he was feeling better.

The combination of all of those medicines, plus the sinus powders Timm often took for sinus headaches, were apparently not closely monitored. One friend attributes Timm's weight loss in his last year to excessive use of the Ritalin, and another said that he didn't like how Timm behaved when taking it, jumpy and nervous. The American Heart Association has since put word out that parents need to be careful about screening children for heart conditions before putting them on Ritalin because the drug can cause sudden heart failure.

Timm had only attempted running a couple of times since then, but he must have been feeling pretty well, because he went for a run in the early evening hours of April 17. I've always wondered what his running route was that night and what he was thinking about - we'll never know.

Back from his run, Timm called his friend Ken around 7 p.m. and they talked awhile, apparently about the coming men's retreat. Ken was also dealing with his wife's breast cancer, so he had a lot of things on his mind. He said that Timm didn't mention that there was anything wrong on that night and they rang off.

But something was wrong. Out running, apparently Timm had felt the strange sensation again of something catching in his chest, followed, this time, by chest pains. Appraently they weren't severe, for he waited four hours to call the paradedics. In their report, the paramedics said he was not in any immediate great distress; his vitals were not too troubling -- 140 over 80. But on the 3.5-mile route to Salem hospital, Timm went into major cardiac arrest, and his downhill slide out of this life began in earnest.

Trying to locate a next of kin, the staff chaplain at Salem Hospital went through Timm's cell phone contacts until he saw a listing for "Dad" and called that number, waking Dad around 1 a.m. Eastern Time him to inform him of Timm's heart attack and the care he was receiving at the hospital.

Dad called me around 3 a.m. to pass on the news. It was one of those nightmarish, up-from-the-dead-of-sleep calls; I didn't know where the phone was as I scrabbled around the side table next to the bed for it. It was Dad - but what? Had there been an accident? Who had died? Fred? How shocked I was to hear that my younger brother Timm had suffered a heart attack.

In my waking state, the gravity of his condition didn't sink in. Beth and I talked a while in bed and figured that Timm would recover and probably come back to Florida to recuperate, much as he had when he'd had his car accident 28 years before.

The chaplain called Dad back again to inform him that Timm's condition was "very grave," having gone into a second Code Blue. Dad called me around 4:30 and said we needed to pray for Timm, it didn't look good. We got up and made coffee, our screechy old calico Zooey at our feet, the morning still dark outside. Yawning, now very worried. We decided to call Mom and Molly and let them know of Timm's condition and let her get in on the prayers.

Dad called me back again 6 to relay the news that despite earnest attempt by the ER staff, Timm had succumbed at 2:55 a.m. Pacific time. I called Molly and asked her to go over to Mom's and then called Mom with the news. I told her I was packing a bag and would be down in an hour.

It was so beautiful that April 18 in Florida, just like it is today, scented, fair, not too warm, everything in blossom, the garden rousing to fullness: none of it said anything of Timm's passing.

But Timm had been smiling on his last day, and seemed so at peace ... maybe the spring day which was the first day without Timm was in accord with his vanished spirit.