Walking With A Friend (Day 20)

I walked with my friend Tim today. I’ve thought a lot about Tim since he passed away early this year. Tim battled cancer and towards the end a small group of us flew to Texas to visit him knowing it would likely be the last time we saw our friend. I believe it may have been the most important trip I’ve ever made and I’ve been thankful to those friends for also making the journey for those difficult few days. We were able to meet and spend some time with his new wife, his sister, his amazing daughter and her mother. We spent time with Tim, held his hand and were able to tell him we loved him. We ever shared some jokes as we might have before he became sick. I’m grateful to have been able to see him at the end. It meant very much to me and I hope it helped him in some way as well. I like to think that knowing his friends were around offered some sense of comfort. 

While this might have been the last time I saw him it’s not the way I remember him. I will forever see Tim as a 13 year old boy in a t-shirt and shorts with an inner tube under his arm. Over many years in our youth I spent countless hours with Tim and our mutual friend Chris, all the way from early adolescence through high school and beyond. But there is one particular summer that always comes to mind. We spent every day meeting up, inflating our inner tubes (car tire tubes is what we used) and going to a local park to begin floating down the creek. We wandered down a dirt road through the field behind my house and into Isaac Walton Park to begin our circuit. We would float for a couple of hours or more, sometimes go to Manor Market for snacks, and then maybe float some more or go to a house to watch an afternoon music video show that I can’t remember the name of. It was remarkable in its simplicity. This was a time in our life before cars, girls, beer, part time jobs or really any true responsibilities. For me it was probably one of the happiest times in my life, not due to any expectations or accomplishments but due to the lack of them. I don’t tend to pine away for my past because I have a pretty amazing present. I’m married to the love of my life. I enjoy where I live and look forward to my future. That said, if I had an opportunity to relive any portion of my past it would be that summer. And it would be with Tim and Chris. Tim and I spoke of this summer quite a few times in later years and I believe he held it as a special time as well.

I suspect walking on a dirt road in the heat brought on the flood of memories (the summer we spent together floating was hot as hell) and subsequently my conversation with Tim. I looked over and there he was, inner tube under his arm and smile on his face. To be clear, I don’t actually think this was a conversation with Tim from the afterlife (although we are both guilty of watching more than a few episodes of Ghost Hunters in our past) but rather myself coming to terms with the passing of a friend. I’m sure part of it was also me coming to terms with one of two people who symbolize my childhood now being gone. We talked about a number of things and just in case anyone is picturing me walking down the trail talking aloud to the air beside me, it was all internal - although I did laugh out loud a couple of times. I’m a little more at peace now than I was before today. I don’t know if we see our loved ones again after we die. I doubt it, but I’m happy to be wrong on that. But I got to see my friend Tim today, and that was pretty good. 

We walked 13 miles today.