In Memory of

Regretfully I am unable to be with you all this evening to collectively honor and remember my good friend, Tim, and I sincerely appreciate his family allowing us to share our memories of him.

Tim was an extraordinary young man.  We attended the same schools from elementary to high school.  I think our first class together was in fourth grade.  We became fast friends through school and sports.  A few weeks ago I pulled out a team picture of our youth football team, the Wolverines.  It must have been the fall of 1969 because my dad was in the picture and he passed away in 1970.  In the picture Tim is standing just to my left – two 10 year-old boys, pals, not a care in the world, just having fun.  We had a lot of fun, trust me, and my friends Bob, Pat, and Andy have told you, or will tell you, much about our friendship.

But let me share one of my fondest memories of Tim, one that serves to punctuate why I used the word “extraordinary” to describe Tim at the outset of my remarks.

Tim used to come to my house a lot as a kid.  I often returned the favor.  Now my younger brother, Eric, was about 4 years old and we were failing miserably in teaching him to tie his shoes.  He was a lefty and the rest of the family was not.  He usually walked around with shoelaces tucked in or dangling about his feet.  One day Tim saw this and decided that he would teach Eric to tie his shoes.  So there they sat, Tim and Eric, in my mother’s bedroom, for what seemed like hours, steadily making progress until the task was mastered.  Tim was probably about 12 years old at the time of this extraordinary act of kindness.  Throughout the teaching process he was patient with my brother, always positive as they steadily made progress.  Tim would not let Eric give up – he made the task fun, and heaped praise on Eric as they mutually achieved success.  To me, this one short-lived event in Tim’s long life is indicative of the person I remember when I think of him.  Kind, funny, sincere, persistent, caring – that was Tim.  Not many 12 year-old boys would have taken the time to do what he did that day with my brother.  Extraordinary – that was Tim.

Now that we are older and reaching our seniority, it seems that reconnecting with old friends becomes more important, almost urgent.  As a relatively new Facebook user I have noticed that I am more interested in contacting and re-establishing relationships with my childhood friends.  Why is that?  I think the explanation lies in the type of friendships that we establish in our youth.  The bonds of these friendships are strong indeed.  They never cease to exist, and they are quickly regenerated through a simple phone call, email or posting on Facebook.  Tim was one of my oldest and dearest childhood friends and I will never forget him.  Let me conclude by saying that when I found out that Tim had died I immediately went to his Facebook page.  I browsed it for some time, reading the remarks that dozens of people had posted to the page.  The stories and comments were emblematic of the impact that Tim had on all who met him.  But what caught my eye on his page was the fact that at the time he had 752 friends.  And I’ll bet that he gave some measure of recognition or attention to each and every one of them, just like he did to my brother so many years ago.  He was a true and caring person.  That, my friends, to me is the character attribute that I believe made him the extraordinary person that he was.  God bless you, Tim.  Thanks for being the person you were.  We are all better off for having known you.