Others I think took pictures too of the day -- Ted Piper, Timm's co-worker in Rep. Hooley's office, sister Molly ... maybe you too? I'll share here what I receive.
The first photo is of the stone marker for Timm which Mom had put in next to the tababoula tree she had planted in Timm's memory. They're located at the memorial site where there are benches in memory of Timm's nephew Nick and his girlfriend Jamie, killed, along with Nick's best friend, in an auto accident in 2007. Mom and Molly and I met there that Saturday ... But more on that later.
If you have pictures of the day you would like to share -- send 'em in!
Finishing a letter to Timm at 6:50 a.m. April 18, 2009 -- a year, to the moment, after Timm's death.
First light in our living room window.
Coffee with Beth. Hey, give her sec, that's just her first sip!Hugo, our dum-dum dwarf Maine Coon, purrs in her lap.
A crepe myrtle tree we planted next to the kitchen window last summer, with purple angeloni fresh-planted around the roots. Behind, on the chimney, the creeping jasmine is in bloom. Oh what a soft, sweet scent it sends out!
We just replanted the window boxes with purple vinca and lantana. Hopefully they will be sturdy enough for the summer sun.We have window boxes now under all of the front windows.
Hugo on the back porch.He always looks surprised -- like he doesn't know who we are -- or caught in the act. We think he might have suffered brain damage from a high fever he had as a kitten.Or he's just plain dumb.
Violet, our Siamese, still asleep in her basket in the upstairs closet. She's reclusive -- doesn't much like the other cats in her house. You probably didn't see her much when you stayed with us for a few days back in 2003 or so, after your Boliva trip.
Spring skies in the morning's opened window! How beautiful! And it will look this way after we're all gone ...
Beth has furnished most of our house with stuff from yard sales, creating a warm, inviting environment. Dreamy. How I love being in our house. This room would have had a very different look when you were here -- she's constantly changing things around.
Belle, our calico, on the table on the back porch. She's so smart -- almost like a dog, so attentive and aware. We should have named her Scout.
The garden in the front yard. We're replanted it a couple of times since your visit -- cleaned everything out, tilled it, laid in new fertilizer with the plants and mulched the heck outta it. The area gets so much direct sunlight that only the hardiest of sun-hardy plants survived. So last spring -- around the time you died -- we just went with Mexican petunias, African irises, Indian hawthorne, society garlic and the two pinwheel jasmine bushes -- and we didn't lose a plant all summer. Nor in the freezes this past winter. This is the first spring in five I haven't been out there starting all over again.
Belle taking a gander out the front window on the garden. The birdbath is new -- a third or fourth replacement since your visit -- this one is much loved by the cardinals and jay and sparrows and doves who routinely stop by for a bath. Belle tries to sing to them, just like Violet used to.Ca ca ca ca!
This is the spot out back next to the garage where Red (whom Hugo resembles) and later Zooey (a calico like Belle) were buried. Red used to love to sleep in that spot in the summer, on his back, paws outstretched in every direction, in full possesion of his world. How he loved life. Zooey did too, old fighter, nearly dead when we resued her off the street one day, living for another year with all of her old conditions. She was 17 or so when she died in July of last summer, just a few months after your death.We didn't have her a long time -- only a year -- but we still miss her so. Maybe it was because she was such a character, a tenacious fighter who must mewed like Ethel Merman and fought for her comforts no matter how much pain she was in from her plural ailments.
Jasmine in full bloom on the garage in back. Dunno if this was a great idea -- you should see all vines inside the garage that have worked their way through. Hurricanes in '04 really messed up the roof tiles, and I've done a lousy job of patching them up.
We screened in the back porch last December, ostensibly so the cats could be out of the house. I took a week off to do all the painting and a contractor working next door came over to install the screens. Remember when we sat out back there talking away that afternoon? How much I thought, "I gotta get to know this guy more." Beth says you were the sweetest and most generous house-guest we've ever had.
Driving down to Mom's late in the morning, signs of local recession were everywhere.
Mom's house! Not much has changed there. She got a reverse mortgage on it and refinanced it when property values were at their height -- so the money she gets from it really helps.
The yellow tababoulia tree across the street from Mom's was almost finished blooming. Just a few yellow blossoms still on its branches. On the day you died, I drove down to Mom's before heading out to the airport and this tree was in full bloom -- almost obcsenely so, I thought, so brilliant and yellow and beautiful when you were dead.
The table in front of the couch in Mom's living room. See your framed self-portrait on the left, and the framed photo across from it of the four of us kids just after you were born? Your face is barely visible behind a blossom in a vase. There's as stack of pictures on the table, too -- Mom was in the process of looking at all of your pictures, putting some of them I had borrowed for use in this site back into albums.
Hi Mom! We all say we look much older a year after your death.I think Mom looks pretty sprightly here at 81.
Now we're out to the memorial site at the public cemetery in downtown Orlando. So many trees protect the area, you wouldn't know an expressway was just a half mile away. The grounds you see were of a house that was willed to the city; the house was torn down and the grounds are being turned into a memorial garden. People can't be buried there, but ashes can be interred. Your nephew Nick's ashes in the stones in front of the benches. The benches were erected for him and his girlfriend Jamie. Just in front of them is the yellow tababoulia tree Mom had planted in your memory. (Dad helped with the cost.)
Sitting on one of the benches, taking a photo to the east where the cemetery proper is. Someone was holding a military funeral when we got there, complete with a 21-gun salute (I think that's seven guns fired three times.)
Looking straight across. There's a lake beyond those trees. Everything very green and still, the day so breezy and clear, starting to feel warm with the big summer you know comes to Florida. I wonder if you ever explored down this way when you were in junior high, living in Winter Park with Mom and Molly. Searching out every nook of undeveloped Central Florida (still possible back then), feeding your heart's yearning for big wilderness. Well, you sure found it out West. Hopefully this spot captures just enough of it to make you happy.
Nick and Jamie's benches.Nick's ashes are interred beneath one of the tiles.
Mom next to your tababoulia tree. She says it will show the first yellow blossoms next spring -- maybe on your day!
The yellow ribbon means (eventual) yellow blossoms. Two other tababoulia trees were planted on the same day, which are ours too. They will have pink blossoms.
In the planter between Nick and Jamie's benches, you'll see a blue toy truck and a plastic horse -- ikons for the childhood loves of those two. What would yours be? Batman slippers?
Mom calling brother Will. He had been out working in the garden in back of his and Sarah's house in Bangor, PA. You woudln't believe how much work they've put into that place. And their garden -- magnificent. Will said it had snowed the previous day but was warm enough on that Saturday to get out in the garden. We sure have it easy here in Florida. Would your gardening itch have grown to something more substantial by now? I remember the potted plants up next to your apartment in Salem, and hearing of some public garden where you had a few thing in. All of us garden -- part of our love of the world, I guess. (Mom's dog Ginger -- remember her? -- is buried under her rose bushes)
We love you, Will! Do you know he's working on a book of photos taken with your camera? He says taking pictures with it makes him feel closest to you.
Enjoying the moment. Molly was taking pictures too; I hope she shares some here. She was pretty quiet on that Saturday, but in a church service for family members she broke down and cried a good while for her son and her brother. (It was hardest for me, for some reason, on Friday the 17th; I kept thinking of you on your last day.) Dad was out of town on April 18 -- at some dedication of a stone circle -- but says he thought of you much as he walked amid those stones.
Hey, there he is! The Photographer has the camera turned on him! You didn't get as tall as him -- just not quite -- nor did you get as fat as he's gotten!
Brother and sister wishing you were here and missing you much and celebrating the beauty of the world -- something you taught us so much about. Love you!
Afterward we went and got sandwiches and returned to Mom's house to eat lunch on her porch and listen to the memorial service again. Breezes in the trees outside, so many people recalling how much you touched them, your obvious gifts for music and photography. How we wish we had a recording of you singing. How we wish you would have lived to conduct "Benedictus" with your church choir. But you left a rich legacy of images and sounds which we treasure, and your good deeds live on in the hearts of the hundreds you reached out to.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leave a word for Timm here!