Thank You

Dear Friends,

I'd like to thank you for all the expressions of love and sympathy Tim's family and I have received since his death on December 15th (2006). Many folks have asked if Tim died as a result of all the health problems he'd had over the years and that's partly true, I guess. (See The Tim Cox Story)

Tim fell here at home on Wednesday, December 13th and broke his left leg close to the hip. On Thursday they operated to fix the leg and he had a heart attack in the Recovery Room. Although the doctors did everything medically possible to save him they could not get his blood pressure back up to anything near normal. Tim's tired heart finally just gave out and stopped on Friday afternoon.

Psalm 91 was given to Tim's mother by the Lord as an encouragement many years ago, and it promises long life to those who set their love upon the Lord. Tim was only 60 years old and that's not really a long life to most people. It certainly didn't seem long enough to me. But for Tim whose body had undergone so many attacks and challenges over his lifetime, it actually was.

Tim was the most courageous, kind, loving, and determined man I ever knew. He was my very best friend almost from the moment we met. Only my Lord Jesus Christ has ever been closer to me, and I miss Tim dreadfully. But today Tim can see, has both his legs, all his fingers and a strong heart, and I believe he is experiencing the greatest of joy with his Lord and with those who arrived in heaven before he did.

Some have said he's playing his French horn with the heavenly orchestra, others have said he's probably water skiing or driving his 280Z (if there is a way to do that in heaven), dancing, playing tennis, telling funny stories and all those other things Tim loved to do at some time in his life on earth. His daughter Angie said he's probably already been elected President of some group, organizing ways to help somebody else! They may all be right.

And he is meeting and greeting family and friends who went ahead of him, especially his grandmother and his dad, but many others who Tim loved. Tim's spiritual gifts included helping a multitude of other people and encouraging everyone he knew whether they were close friends or new acquaintances. I told someone that Tim could make a friend out of a wrong number, and that was true. He even put one lady who had dialed the wrong number on hold, then used our business line to get her the right number.

When I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, my heart hears a little voice telling me to "Look forward, not back." I am striving to do that, to look forward as I work to make the Lord — and Tim — proud of the way I live my life from this point.

A number of people have asked me about the Family Memories column. Actually, my writing it was Tim's idea in the first place. I think he would like for me to continue so I'll try to get back to it in the very near future. If you ever met Tim, would you let me know? I'm making a little collection of the various ways people were touched by his life.

In the meantime, Tim's family and I wish to say a heartfelt thanks to you for all the expressions of love and sympathy we have received. With gratitude and prayers for a blessed 2007 for us all,

Bette Cox

I use different routes these days...

March 19, 2007

The strangest things happen occasionally. I'll start to drive down a familiar street and realize that the last time I drove down this street Tim was in the car with me. Then I can't make myself continue down that street. I'll turn off somewhere, go a different route, even if my destination is one where Tim and I had been numerous times. There's just something about remembering that last drive on this street, this block, that gets to me.

The first time I went to buy groceries was like that. It was very hard. I no longer had to purchase certain things that Tim liked, that I previously bought just for him. My shopping list was much shorter, truncated, just as I felt my heart was. Pushing my cart down certain aisles became nearly impossible and I just didn't buy some things that day.

Last night as I drove home from my small group meeting I deliberately went the long way around, just so I wouldn't feel that same horrible aloneness when there should have been the two of us in the car.

For a similar reason I no longer use the front door to my condo much. I could, but now I park the car near the side door that Tim and I never used together because it has a step. I don't need the handicap parking space close to the front door so I just park near the side door. Entering the condo this way doesn't trigger fresh memories of the last time Tim and I went in or out of our condo together, and that way it doesn't trigger fresh pain.

Strange, the things I do to keep that pain at bay, the pain of Tim not accompanying me when I leave the house. Even though I went many places, many times, by myself in the past, it's those times we went in and out together that are still too fresh, too tender in my mind.

I know Tim can experience my comings and goings along with me, and he can see where we're going now where he couldn't before. Sometimes the Lord lets me hear Tim's reaction to seeing the inside of a place we'd been but he'd never seen, like Lowe's, or the Mall — cluttered. Jumbled. Noisy he knew, but splashy, junky, cluttered he didn't know. I was never that good at describing all the stuff you find in places like that. His reaction to those places is funny, really, like a kid sometimes turning up his nose at spinach, yuk - why on earth do you want to shop here, I can almost hear him say. Well, I'm used to the junkiness, I don't even think about it, I tell him.

It's just that his physical presence was so much a part of my life. It's something I want back! But not want back too, if it meant Tim wouldn't be well and whole and able to see and do everything he can see and do in heaven these days.

I know one day this hurtful aloneness feeling will be gone. It just comes over me sometimes and I use whatever means I need to get past it.

Bette's Website

All former material on this blogsite and Bette's other blogs has been transferred to her website www.BetteCox.com.

This blog will be dedicated to Bette's thoughts and reactions following the death of her beloved husband, Tim C. Cox, on December 15, 2006.

Thank You is a letter Bette wrote to the community following Tim's death.

Several of the following are special posts about Tim. One is an article Bette wrote about Tim several years ago, titled The Tim Cox Story. The Cool Dozen is an article Tim wrote himself, about an adventure he and several friends had on Black River the year they graduated from high school.

Please visit Bette's website to read her Family Memories newspaper columns, her short stories, humerous online novel, Bible studies, opinion pieces and other writings, www.BetteCox.com.

The above photograph was taken by Bette in their living room the Sunday before Tim died.