Strange Grace

Here’s a story about me and Tim I’m not sure I should tell. A friend of ours’ father had died, and Tim and I – along with Chris and John, if memory serves correctly – were heading to the funeral to pay our respects. On the walk to the service, one of us suggested we stop at Walgreens to get a card.

It is no defense, but I’m compelled to tell you that we were in 8th grade, and while we were all pretty OK kids, we did not have the maturity levels one needed for this task. The moment I walked inside the store, I made a beeline for the cosmetics aisle before stopping myself – in shock at my self-centeredness and lack of sensitivity – and pivoted to where the Hallmarks were. 

Tim was probably looking at baseball cards. 

It was awkward is what I’m trying to say. We weren’t doing this right. We didn’t know how to do this right. What 14 year old would?

Eventually we found our way to the card aisle and stood there – again, awkwardly – in silence until Tim started to laugh. Hard. “These cards are all for old women!” he said, which sent me into a fit of giggles which, thanks to this brown-eyed, freckled boy I’d known since I was five years old, turned into hysterics.

I do not remember if we got a card. What I remember is how hard we were laughing and egging each other on, and of course it was wrong and inappropriate, but thanks to Tim, it was the lightest I’d felt during this inaugural navigation of death and grief. 

There is, of course, memories of t-ball games and baseball games, My brother Geoff played on Tim’s team for several years, and I spent many summer afternoons in the bleachers watching the boys play. I cannot see the White Sox logo without thinking of Tim. I believe the last time I saw him was on a summer night when I dropped him off at his house, and just as he’d gotten out of the car, John ran out of his house and threw a baseball at him. Tim dashed behind my car to catch the ball. I saw it in my rearview mirror. He was in mid-air – kind of like Jordan except with baseball – and he threw it back to John. 

In 5th grade, Tim gave me a Hershey bar on the playground of Longfellow School. For like three days he and I were “going out” and probably giving a girl chocolate was the thing to do, and probably what both of us wished was to go back to the days when we walked home after school – a whole group of us – making up some kind of game of tag, or catch, and laughing at our really stupid jokes. 

I was not in Oak Park when Tim died. By the time I came home, the wake, the funeral, all of it was over. I was left with details about a basketball game, and most likely I was too afraid to ask, and not courageous enough to dwell on the tragedy of a childhood friend losing his life before his senior year of high school. But I worked in our high school bookstore, and since I’d missed everything, my boss recommended that I see a counselor during my lunch breaks, and since I was a somewhat compliant kid, and I adored my boss, I went. 

I didn’t know what to say, and this time there was no comedic relief to the awkwardness in the room. The counselor slid a piece of paper across the table, and handed me a pen. “Maybe you’d like to write Tim a letter,” she said, and then left me alone. It was the memory of Tim and I laughing in Walgreens that I wrote about. I knew I wasn’t going to send it to him, so I figured I may as well confess how I still get the giggles thinking about it. I know I told him I missed him. I know I told him I was sorry. But somehow, telling him this memory felt truer – and sadder – than these other statements.

I think that’s why I’m sharing it with you all now. It is true that I think of Tim every June, and I get sad. It is true that he died way too young. It is also true that hearing Tim laugh was the sizzle of hot dogs on the grill. It was the glint of sparklers on July 4th. Maybe I shouldn’t hang on to this moment, but if there is any redemption in it at all, it’s that I remember, and in remembering I acknowledge how very complicated teenagers –  and all of us – are. Tim showed me that strange grace. He made me laugh. I am grateful to have lived on the same street as him for almost 17 years. I am grateful he was my friend.