The Best Hearts Are Often Overlooked

Attentive people on Twitter have heard me speak of Timmy. He is fifty years old and child like but never unintelligent. He is the one who always laughs, "I have clowns in my belly!" I'm pretty sure he does.

Last year Timmy asked me to make him a scarf and I did. I really like Timmy's no nonsense way of asking for things. I never doubt where I stand with him. I could have told him "no" and he would have been fine with that, too. When I presented the scarf to Timmy he was thrilled. He loved the color and texture and the personalized name tag saying it was made especially for him. He wore it proudly as we parted. I never saw it again. I asked him about it on one particularly cold day. Timmy's head drooped and he said he lost it.

That was last year. This year Timmy asked if I'd make him another scarf. I laughed at him and told him I'd buy him a scarf if he needed one. But Timmy really wants one of my scarves so he admitted he gave the previous one to a homeless person. He told me the whole story. It was typical Timmy. It was freezing cold. He had a place to go but the homeless man did not so it made sense to give him the scarf so he could be a little warmer. Timmy knows I've been homeless and have a sensitivity for people in that situation but I also know there are people you can help and people who don't want practical help. I've no idea which type this homeless man was but he could have been just as warm with a five dollar scarf as he was with the one it took me days to crochet. I told Timmy I would be happy to give him a store of scarves for that situation but he is right, the man was cold RIGHT THEN and needed warmth.

Tonight he came up to me and reminded me about the scarf. I told him I am halfway through with his and I will give him that and another half dozen if I never have to hear about the scarf again. He smiled with that smile that told me that was not what he came to talk about.

Timmy told me he was walking on a frigid night such as tonight but it was twenty years ago, when he made six figures and he was a software engineer. He was in a hurry. A homeless man asked him for a dollar. He gave him five dollars. The homeless man was overwhelmed by his generosity and gave him a garbage bag.  Timmy was surprised to get anything in return for his five dollars so he gave the man another hundred. Timmy told me how he has carried that garbage bag with him from home to home and never forgotten about that night.

Timmy says he keeps the garbage bag near his bed with his cross and rosary. When his friends are going through bad times he prays for them at this alter he has made and every time his prayers have been answered. Timmy has a lot of faith in that garbage bag he has carried for twenty years. It is his treasure.

After he told me the story he explained he never wears jewelry, not even a watch. He was firm on this fact. Then he pulled out from his shirt a cross and rope braided from a garbage bag. "I just felt I had to wear it tonight and tell this story," said Timmy. I confirmed with him the garbage bag is still in the same condition as when he received it.  Timmy nodded and replied, "This is my one hundred and five dollar cross."

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05.19.2011 My beloved friend, Timmy, passed away this May 11th, too early in his life. I'll miss him terribly but will forever remember the clowns in his belly, hear the echo of his laugh and feel my own heart swell when I think of his. Godspeed dear friend. I love you.


(Picture: Timmy's garbage bag.)

Father: Memorial For A Veteran

I wrote the following post as a tribute to Father around the time of Father's Day and Memorial Day because both are so linked in my heart to him but it is now, the day he was buried, that he really comes to mind. I am reposting it here. 


I can't imagine he planned to be buried on Veterans' Day but it gave great comfort to my Mother and me. First things being first, we both marched in the Veterans' Day Parade, me as a flutist in the marching band and Mother in the Ladies VFW Auxiliary. Only after that duty did we continue to the grave site to bid farewell to Pop. With that preface, here it is: 


When I think of Veterans the first person I think of is my Pop. Growing up, I often saw him in the uniforms of the Veterans Of Foreign Wars or the American Legion. He was always in parades or going to conferences. My earliest dancing was conducted on the toes of his shoes, to a live band, after a conference or parade ended. My Father's service to the United States was his proudest achievement.

He died when I was still young so my memories of him are faint but a part of him lives on through his poetry. My Mother hand typed these poems and passed them on to me, knowing my love of language.

Father left high school early to join the Navy for World War II. That is how he met my mother, a USO accordionist, on the opposite side of the country. He wore his Naval uniform for their wedding.

Few of his poems were about war but the following is. 

The Zero Hour

The whistle of the bombshell
The shot screamed high above
As I burrowed like a groundhog
I thought of home and love

We hadn't long to linger
The word came for the charge
We were welcomed to their trenches
By a blistering barrage

We took full half a mile
Of that cursed No Man's Land
Then reached the German trenches
And were fighting hand in hand.

I passed from the world of the living
And entered the world of the dead
Another American soldier 
To that war machine been fed

He was not fed to the war machine during World War II so he again served his country in the "Korean Conflict." (It took years for the United States Government to admit the action in Korea was a war so I remember it being referred to in this manner, in our household.) When Father retired from military service it was as a Senior Master Sergeant for the United States Air Force.

This was all before I was born but so much a part of my Father's identity that history class was alive for me. My oldest brother was a Vietnam era veteran and I remember the fear in our family of wondering when the war would end. When my sister joined the Air Force I was unnerved to see her in uniform. I was told she would be okay but as a little girl, growing up with hushed stories of war, how could I be certain?

Father always seemed haunted but at the same time, in wonder of life. When he finally was defeated, it was not war which took him but cancer. He raced to button up his life for his wife and remaining small child. He was not given enough time but Mum was a military wife and knew how to get through. By the time he left us, we both did. It helped he left us with this, which was read at his funeral:

Just See That You're Happy Today

Don't worry yourself with tomorrow
Tomorrow's a long way away
Forget all your troubles and sorrows
Just see that you're happy today

Try living your life for the minute
Who knows what tomorrow will hold
Try getting the best that is in it
Tomorrow itself will unfold

A lifetime you think lies before you
Can't you get wise to what's true?
A million and one things can floor you
Then where is tomorrow for you?

So live as I say for the present
Tomorrow will come as it may
Though you be a king or a peasant
Just see that you're happy today

He wrote the second poem while still in the Navy during World War II (February 10th, 1942). The world was going to hell in a hand basket and he was writing about embracing life. This is the legacy he left.

War. Service. Cancer. Duty. These are the words I think of when I think of my soldier father. On this day where we memorialize those who served and those who died for our country I give to you his words. For those who have suffered and died and those who have suffered and lived through the illness that was his final act in life, I give you his inspiration. Frederick A. Devlin III never missed an opportunity to serve his country or its citizens. 

Godspeed to all soldiers past, present and future whether fighting for this country or fighting for your life. Thank you for your service to country, community and family.