Who says we can’t learn an important life lesson from the most unexpected source?

Timmy…..let me tell you about my special Timmy.  Timmy is a miracle, and his infectious laugh would make even the most hardened heart melt.  Just to know him, is to love him.  Timmy came into this world in the spring of 1961.  Although he was Henry’s second child, he was Donzil’s only child, and he immediately became her bright and shining star.  Just as he was his mothers star, he is a bright and shining star to all who know and love him.

Timmy was born with a multitude of medical problems, as with most down’s syndrome children.  Donzil was his crusader and his caretaker.  Her life goal was to bring Timmy up without being institutionalized, and that is exactly what she did.  Timmy would always know the unconditional love of his parents, and would thrive and learn and grow into a man despite his prognosis when he was born.

For some reason, our families did not have much contact in my younger years, thus, I didn’t know my cousin Timmy in his younger years.  By the time that I really remember much about Timmy, he was a man.  A man secure in himself, and a man secure in the love and the warmth of his parents.  My first poignant memory of Timmy is when I was approximately 12.  We were playing in his back yard, and he and I were pretending to get married.  One of the younger neighborhood kids came over and got involved in our play.  He was pretending like he was a monster and like he was going to get me.  Well, let me just tell you in a nut shell, Timmy did NOT like the fact that this kid was scaring me….his wife.  In Timmy’s world, he could not grasp the concept that this was play, and he somewhat lost control.  He started chasing this child, and even went so far as throwing a lawn chair across the yard.  The look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know, and I knew I needed to act fast.  I chased Timmy, and talked soothingly to him to make him realize that I was fine, and that we were just playing.  This stands out in my mind as one of the first lessons I learned about complete and total love.  He was willing to chase off the “monster” who was scaring someone he loved.  All he could think about was that I was scared, and the thought never crossed his mind that if it had been a real monster chasing me, he would have put himself in harms way to protect me.

Little did I know then how much that day would become a part of my life forever and ever.  Just as Timmy could not see that the young boy and I were playing, I believe that still to this day Timmy thinks that he and I got “married” that day.  From that moment forward, I became his wife.  I am still his “wife”.  As we were having our marriage ceremony that day, he went in and got a man’s ring (ironically enough) that my father had given him years earlier.  During our ceremony, he actually placed that ring on my finger.  When I tried to give it back to him, he would not take it.  Before we left Florida to come home, I had to actually give the ring back to his mother.
In my naivety, I never knew how much that ring would come to mean to me.  Once we left, I never thought about the marriage ceremony again.  Nor did I ever think that Timmy would remember it.  After all, he has downs syndrome, and there was no way he could remember it.  Or could he?

I don’t get to see Timmy as often as I should, let alone as often as I want to.  However, from that significant day on, each and every time I saw Timmy, he would call me his wife.  For anyone who knows Timmy, that would not come as a surprise.  Timmy LOVES women, and in his mind, Timmy has a host of wives.  If there is a woman that he loves, or a woman that he thinks is pretty, or if a woman has a large chest, they are his wife……ALL of them.  However, what is so amazing to me, is that each and every time I saw him, after he called me his wife, he would go to his room and come out with that ring, the ring from years before when we had our ceremony.  Which, I might add, there is no telling what all Timmy has stashed in his room.  He would lovingly place “that ring” on my finger.  For years, that is how he greeted me.  After that, Timmy would go and get a photo of my father down out of his room, and want to know where my dad was.  Did I mention that Timmy idolized my father?

Once again, that goes back to the total love that Timmy has.  When he loves someone, he loves them completely.  Timmy, who has such a limited mind, could go for years without seeing my father, and then draw a picture of him.  And the picture would be so accurate it was uncanny.  Out of sight, out of mind, certainly is not a part of Timmy’s world.  My father could give Timmy something, and Timmy will keep it for year and years, and know at the drop of a hat that it came from “Un Ca”.  He never forgot.  Even when the rest of the world gets so busy, Timmy still keeps those people he loves close to his heart.  We should all be so lucky.

Eventually, I met the man of my dreams, and I got married.  Shortly thereafter, we started a family.  We eventually had two children of our own.  As a military family, and me a stay at home mother, we went for years and did not get to go to Florida to visit.  Although my family from Florida had come to North Carolina to visit us, Timmy and his parents didn’t come as traveling is hard on Timmy.  My own children, did however, grow up knowing all about my special Timmy.

When my children were a little older, we did have the time and most importantly the funds to take a vacation.  Where else would we go but Florida?  I did not know how my children would react to Timmy.  Although they knew all about him, I was worried that they would be scared or uncomfortable.  They told me that they would not be, but as a mother, I knew that they had never been exposed to a person with a handicap as severe as Timmy’s.  I had told my children that shortly after we got there, that Timmy would go to his room, and get “the ring”, and bring it out, and then he would ask about my father, their grandfather.  Our greeting was not much different than the years past, except for one significant difference.  I was legally married now.  When we told Timmy that Tony was my husband, immediately, he did not like the idea, nor did he like Tony.  He argued with Tony that I was “his wife”.  After just a short while, when he found out that my husband was from Texas, the home of Timmy’s favorite TV show Dallas and the infamous JR Ewing, he decided that Tony wasn’t so bad.  He even went to his room to get his cowboy hat for my husband to wear.  They had something in common, and another lifelong bond was formed.  He and my husband still argue over me, and whose wife I am.  Timmy gets a kick out of when my husband tells him that I am not a good wife because I can’t cook.  His infectious laugh makes us all giggle.  And he doesn’t care that I can’t cook.  I think that in Timmy’s mind, I have two husbands.  However, he does truly love Tony now, and I know from experience, that love will never end.

Another one of my most memorable moments with Timmy took place about two years ago.  Just as he associates me with my father, I always wondered if he would ever associate my husband and my two children with me.  I got my answer.  I was there visiting (while my husband and children stayed back in North Carolina), and I called home.  Timmy got on the telephone and spoke with my two children.  After the phone call ended, I asked him who he had talked to.  I was able to decipher that he knew exactly who he had talked to, and that he associated them with me.  What a joy to realize that!  And what a joy to know that he loves them as unconditionally as he loves me.  It is a gift that my children will be able to carry with them all the days of their lives.


As time has passed, we have had more opportunities to go and visit everyone in Florida. Throughout all the years, Timmy’s greeting to me has never changed.
Timmy had a really bad year several years ago.  In December, he lost his Aunt whom he loved dearly.  They had lived next door to each other it seems like forever.  Not even two months later, he lost his grandmother.  That is a lot of any person to take, let alone for someone like Timmy.  Less than two months after the death of his grandmother, he lost father and his other uncle in a very tragic and most unexpected way.  I have never ever seen anything more heartbreaking than that was.  Timmy was a broken human being.  It was like his very soul had been ripped from his insides.  He could not even function.  In the midst of dealing with the deaths, Timmy was the one that we were the most worried about.  His doctors put him on medications, and they wanted to put him in the hospital away from his mother.  Donzil would have none of that.  She knew her son, and she knew what he needed.  Furthermore, she knew that would absolutely be the end of him.  In the end, she won, and kept him home.  The devastation that Timmy was feeling…..and the fight that his mother put up for him.  What greater love is there?  And what a gift for me that I was able to be a witness to it?  She exhibited the patience and love that she has always had with Timmy, and in the end, Timmy came out of it.  He was torn and tattered, but he was making it.  Growing up with selfless acts such as this, should there be any doubt that Timmy loves the way only Timmy can?

 

This past Christmas, my family decided to spend Christmas in Florida, with our family there.  It was during that trip, that I realized that life really does come full circle.  Timmy’s mother had some items for me and my husband.  The items were very thoughtfully chosen for us.  There was a small box for me, and small box for my husband, and a small box for each of my children.  Inside of each box, there were items from our relatives there who have passed away.   Jewelry for me from my two aunts, her husband’s retirement watch among other items for my husband, some jewelry for my daughter, but can you imagine the surprise when I looked in to see what she had placed inside that box for my son?  There were money clips that had belonged to her husband, but also tucked away in that box was “the ring”.  It was the ring that Timmy had placed on my hand so many countless times over the years.  I don’t believe that she knew the significance of that ring when she placed it in the box for my son, nor is there any way that she could have realized just how much “that ring” was a part of my life.  There is no way that she could have known how many lessons “that ring” has taught me, nor how much Timmy taught me through that ring. 
Unfortunately, Timmy’s heath has steadily declined since his father’s passing.  He has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  I know that he already lives in a world designed for Timmy, and I also know that eventually this cruel disease will render him into an even more isolated world.  I know that ultimately, he will not remember his “wife”, nor will he remember the ring.  However, it is something that I will always remember and carry in my heart.  Since my son now has custody of the infamous ring, it will forever be a part of this family, a reminder for us to love completely and unconditionally.  Timmy’s gift to us will last for generations.

Thanks to Cristy Reese for this wonderful story.