Remembering Timm O'Cobhthaigh: Remembering Timm (d. 4/18/2008)

We remember and celebrate and cherish you, Timm...

Fourth Anniversary of Timm’s death

from Mom

Four years or is it forty days? Time plays tricks on me…only yesterday? or did it really happen at all? Maybe Timm is still in Oregon enjoying a full life in his beloved northwest with all its glorious beauty of mountains and waterfalls? No, not so. Oh how I wish it had never happened! Grief is still like a deep underground stream that occasionally erupts into a great waterfall. As I tell myself and others, I’ll never get over it, but I do get better at it, the grief that is.

Four years ago today, the golden beauty of the tababouie tree in my neighbor JoAnn’s yard shone for me as a beacon of hope. Despite the harshness of the news I had received earlier that morning, the beauty of that tree seemed to say, “It’s not over. Death is not the end of Timm but the beginning.” Four years later, the tree is no more and JoAnn has followed Timm. I will continue on my journey of faith until I, too, follow them. Oh happy day!

Just a little over a week ago, we celebrated Easter, the Day of Resurrection. We proclaimed: He’s alive! Jesus lives! He is with us! At the same time, He lives with our Father in the Kingdom that knows no end. So is my song…Timm is alive! Timm is so much more alive than he ever was when he was with us. Just as death could not hold Jesus, so I know that death no longer holds Timm. He now lives – no longer bound by those struggles that so defined his days. He is alive with all his gifts perfected and used in ways that I cannot begin to imagine. Therefore for me, death no longer defines or frightens me. Just as Timm lives, so shall I live… following, as did Timm, in the Way of our Lord Jesus.

The legacy of Timm continues: Will’s passion and gifting with photography might not have happened without the gift of Timm’s camera. Now the beauty that we so admire in Timm’s pictures has been perfected and taken to new heights with Will’s photography, and all thanks to Timm! As inheritor of Timm’s laptop and his extensive archive of slides, Dave has shared Timm’s writings that we would never have known about. The photos he has posted here and in his book, Beauty Heals, have kept Timm’s memory very much alive for me. Will and Dave have preserved Timm’s legacy of beauty, struggle and triumph to inspire us all.

So, I remember this day with both sadness and hope…a joyous expectation that I will again see and be with Timm. Later today I will go to the cemetery where a tree is marked in memory of him…another tababouie that is still early in its growth just as Timm is still early in his growth in his new life. Time no longer holds or limits him, but time still holds us. So as time moves slowly at times for me and at other times seems to gallop by, I will continue cherishing all those memories that Dave has helped to fix so firmly in my mind, those photos and writings that have come to mean so much to me. As I admire Will’s amazing photographs and reverence the living memorial of Dave’s blog, I can only say, To you and because of you, Timm! Thank you, Will and Dave!

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For Timm

from Will

This a online portfolio of my work which I dedicate to Timm. I just wanted to say this: I have a second date of birth, and it is even more important than the first -- the one on which I discovered photography, my true vocation.

(Click here to launch the portfolio cover page and then click on the site link highlighted in blue to view the portfolio. The page should launch in a separate tab; to get back to this post find the tab at the top for the blog, or close the portfolio window. Make sure the volume of your computer is up so you can hear the accompanying music.)

Will and Timm at Molly's wedding, 1987. Note the camera in the foreground.

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Remembering Timm

by David

Instead of writing as I usually do, I post the following slideshow featuring first pix of Timm's growing up and then a panoply of his photographic work, roughly grouped into the categories of Great Outdoors, Everyday Life, Kids (and Dogs) and Flowers, with a few things of farewell at the end. The music is by Pat Matheny and is titled "For The Boys" - just the sort of tune Timm would have loved to play on his guitar.

Timm's song of beauty sings on in us!

Remembering Timm from David Cohea on Vimeo.

(To view it, click anywhere on the image. To see it in full screen mode, drag your cursor over the image and you'll see a "four arrows" icon at the the lower right portion of the video - click there. You can adjust the volume by clicking on the horizontal bars just to the left of the arrows. If you want to download it so you have a copy on your computer, I can e-mail you a link.)