Happy Kickoff Day!

It's football season! I am happy. Sunday afternoons on the couch in PJs. (Even if I am dressed for church, when I come home, it's all about PJs for football viewing.)

That's what has been missing in my world since February. All is right again.

Looking back on Tim

Tonight, as I did laundry, I found the 2nd to last gift my Uncle Tim ever gave us. It set me thinking about Tim, and his impact on my life.

In December 2006, at Christmas, he gave Donald and I a 1000 minute calling card. We tried to explain to him that we each had cell phones with free long distance, but he insisted we take the card.

I know this sounds small...but it wasn't. Not at all. It cost him $10.00, which is insignificant to most of us. To Tim, who lived on $475.oo a month (military disability), it was not so insignificant at all. But more than cost, it was the actual significance of the gift that made it large. Tim had schizophrenia, and unknown to him at the time, he had a brain tumor growing in his frontal lobe that would prove fatal in less than 5 months. Tim had little entertainment in life. TV and radio were off limits, as the mental illness caused him to have hallucinations while listening to them. No matter who was talking/singing, he heard Roseanne Barr's voice telling him to kill his mom. I cannot imagine going through life with the trials my uncle had to live with. The nightmare that he could not wake up from.

The one thing he loved, more than anything, was talking to people. He drank iced tea at the diner in the south end every morning and more iced tea in the middle of the night at the truck stop. The truckers and the waitresses were kind to him, and for that I thank God. He needed that kindness so much. He called my grandma several times each day, and other family members often also. He just needed to talk, even if you couldn't give him much time. He was lonely a lot. It's hard to make and keep friends when you are mentally ill. He found a few loyal friends when he joined the freemasons. Say what you will about the masons, but they took him in and accepted him. He needed that. He found another loyal friend in Pastor Don. Anyone who would listen patiently would be repaid, not through money, but through time. Tim would help anyone do anything. He'd give you a ride, change your flat tire, rip up your old carpet. Just ask, and he'd do. These calling cards, they were his lifeline. And he gave us one. We never used a minute of it, it sat on top of our microwave before falling behind the washer where I found it tonight. I wish I'd called him with it...or without it...I didn't. I can't change that. Had I known how soon he'd be gone, maybe I would have.

2 years ago this past May, my uncle died. He had refused all treatment except pain management and said God told him he would come get him. He went in his sleep, without pain. I think in some ways the tumor was a blessing to him. The psychiatrist had told my grandma that most schizophrenics die at their own hand, the disease it just too much to bear. This tumor, and being able to refuse operating, gave him a more acceptable way out of a life of challenges, and very little joy. He was able have healing in his relationship with my grandpa through the tumor, also, which he wanted more than anything else. He died on a Sunday morning, the same day he had asked to be anointed and prayed for in church. I hope he worshipped with the angels that day instead.

As for Tim and me...I don't know if I can even do it justice.

As a little girl, he was my "tiger" uncle. He had so many tattoos, more than anyone I'd ever seen, from his days in the Marines. One was a tiger on his stomach. I'd lift the edge of his shirt and he would roar and I would run. At age 4, this was so entertaining. He'd give my brother and I horsey rides on his hands and knees around my grandma's kitchen for hours. He's pull us in a box (thankfully they had hardwood floors). He took us up what seemed the largest hill in the world to go fishing for bluegill and crappies. He rode us around the pasture on his dirtbike. He bought us poppers and snakes from the fireworks tent. He paid me 50 cents to "clean his room." He was fun.

But he disappeared for months at a time...sometimes he wrote us letters while he was gone, but sometimes he didn't. I was a teenager when I learned why. Tim had schizophrenia. He had to go into the hospital for treatment, and medication changes, on a semi-regular basis. It was then that he wrote us letters...he always drew a monkey under his signature. But sometimes, we got no letters...during those absences he was not in the hospital. He was drunk. Tim was an alcoholic. My grandparents knew that long before they learned about the schizophrenia. They tried to get him help, but it never stuck. It was years before they learned that he drank because it was the only way to shut the voices up. He had fewer drinking episodes after he got treatment for the schizophrenia, but he still relapsed every few years. He knew he couldn't stay at my grandparents if he was drinking, so at those times, he stayed wherever he could find someone willing to let him. Eventually, he'd wind up back at the V.A. hospital, sober up and change meds, and he would be Tim again.

I was never scared of Tim. I trusted that he would never hurt me. As a teenager, even knowing that he mentally ill, I was never scared. My parents were divorced by the time I started attending church and my mom worked nights. Tim would come and pick me and my brother up, take us to dinner and then drop me off at whatever youth function they were having that night, and entertain James while I was there. I did not realize then how much off his monthly pension he was using on gas and food those nights. He sacrificed to do that for us. I thanked him each time, but my gratitude is higher now, knowing all I know.

When I went away to college, he called me sometimes and we'd talk for awhile. I'd see him for holidays and hear how he was doing when I talked to my grandma. Sometimes the news was good...sometimes it wasn't. That's the nature of mental illness.

Tim was generous to the very end. When he found out he had brain cancer, and could no longer drive, he said he wanted Donald to have his car. He died before we could get up there to get it. My grandfather was executor and passed it to Donald. Donald drove it until it died. We sold it this summer...and I kissed my fingers and laid that kiss on the car, feeling as if I was saying goodbye to Tim again. I miss him. All I have is a 2x4 inch plastic card and memories now.