There was a memorial service Wednesday for my dear friend Tim Baer, who died the previous Saturday. None of you knew Tim, but he was one of my closest friends in AA. We met soon after I got sober. Tim was my sponsor’s sponsor for many years. After Terry, my sponsor, moved to Mobile, Tim and I shared Squire as a sponsor. I initially asked Tim to sponsor me, but he refused because of our close friendship, which is how I ended up with Terry. Terry says that Tim knew that if I was always bugging Terry about something, then Terry would not have as much of an opportunity to bug Tim, so it worked out well.
Tim’s cancer was diagnosed about three weeks ago. The cancer was Stage IV lung cancer. In addition, Tim had congestive heart failure, which is what eventually killed him.
Tim was a solid Republican who worked for the likes of Jesse Helms and Karl Rove, so some might consider our friendship unlikely, but friendship in politics often transcends ideology. Tim’s real work, though, was with recovering alcoholics, and he excelled at that. Squire put it best, saying that Tim worked a program that he was not capable of working. I agree.
My first couple of years in AA were easy. I rarely obsessed about alcohol, and there was plenty of money thanks to my former wife. After my divorce, things fell apart. I worked at a menial job for menial wages, barely scraping by. I was hired to work on a campaign at a good salary, and I thought I was on the way back. Then I was fired after three months. Campaign work does not qualify you for unemployment, so all my money was gone pretty quick.
I will just about take a beating rather than admit to weakness, so I held my feelings in until I experienced my dark night of my soul. I was losing my place to live, losing my car, and possibly losing my sobriety. My bank balance was twenty-three cents. Suicide suddenly seemed an option. I wanted to drink and I wanted to die; it is just that simple. I had inherited my Grandfather’s calvary pistol and bullets, though I had never fired the weapon. I was scared enough to drive around and throw all the bullets out the window so I could not use them. When I returned home, I summoned enough courage to call Tim and ask for help.
Tim calmed me down, telling me that all was not lost, that this was only a bump in the road. I asked him to lend me five dollars so I could purchase some food. The next day we met at the local clubhouse and he gave me ten, double what I asked for, then he sat with me and helped me develop a plan to get out of my predicament. That was the type of guy Tim was. He was there when people needed him, and he sure saved my ass.
Tim used to hang around the Five Points clubhouse in Birmingham. If you hang around AA clubhouses, you are bound to meet some strange people. Raymond hangs out there. Thirty years ago, Raymond would have been institutionalized; he functions, but he is not quite all there. Raymond is a dead ringer for Moe from the 3 Stooges, chain smokes cigarettes, and talks to himself a lot. He is short, wears pants that are six inches too wide in the waist and held together by a belt several sizes too large.
Raymond loves military history, particularly World War Two. Raymond always talked about wanting to see the battleship USS Alabama, anchored in Mobile Bay, so one day Tim took Raymond on a field trip. Raymond had the time of his life. No one had ever taken Raymond on a trip. Tim also bought him a plastic model of the Alabama that Raymond could build, but Tim ended up having to build it with him. Terry had already moved to Mobile by this time and met them there. Terry says it was a day to remember.
Tim called a few months ago and asked if I had any furniture, towels, or sheets that I could give to Raymond. He had gone to Raymond’s apartment and found it a shambles, so Tim put together an effort to get his place straightened out, cleaned up, and properly furnished.
I guess the point of this story is that Raymond could not help himself in some respects, but Tim went out of his way to help him with no thought or prospect of receiving anything in return. That is the kind of person Tim was, and I am so grateful that I had to opportunity to call him my friend.
Terry and I went to see Tim last Friday morning in the intensive care unit, but he was sedated heavily and unresponsive, so we said our goodbyes in silence. Tim and I had an hour long telephone conversation the previous week, so we had already said goodbye. We just did not know how long it would take for the disease to kill him. It did not take long.
Terry and I traveled that weekend, but we stayed in touch by phone with Anne Mancer, who coordinated things at the hospital. She and Jerry G. got Tim shaved and cleaned up before Katie, Tim’s daughter, arrived back in town Saturday night. Tim was not capable of breathing on his own, so the nurses and doctors took out all the tubes, brought in the family, and Tim died ten minutes later.
The memorial service attracted an overflow, eclectic crowd. There were a couple of Alabama Supreme Court justices, plus a guy in a Hell’s Angel’s t-shirt. I am not sure that the political types were prepared for AA people. I placed a bet with Terry that someone’s cell phone would go off during the service, plus a side bet that the person would take the call. Sure enough, a phone did go off, but it was one of the politician’s phone, and he did not answer. An AA member would not have done that.
Three people spoke. The first speaker, Chris G., explained to the politicians that AA is about speaking in the language of the heart, and then talked about he and Tim used to sit around Five Points making fun of people in AA who talked about the language of the heart. The funny stories Chris told about Tim brought most of us to tears at the realization that there will be no more new stories. One of Tim’s political buddies spoke, then Katie gave a few remarks. She started off by having everybody look to the sky and tell Tim that we told him that the damn room was not big enough. It was a sweet service. Afterwards, many in the crowd went over to Squire and Grace’s house and swapped Tim stories until late in the night.
When I was a kid, Reader’s Digest used to publish stories about the most unforgettable characters people knew. I suppose they still do. If given the chance to write, I would have chosen Tim. An unforgettable character. The man who saved my life.
Life is sometimes difficult. A person can be taken from us in an instant and we are left to reflect on how they enriched our lives by their presence and support. We pass what we learned on to another and the cycle continues. At least that is how AA works. Monday night I received a call from C., a young guy I sponsor, telling me that they were inducing labor on Tuesday for the birth of his second child. Tuesday night I received a cell phone photo of little E., still red-skinned and so fragile and innocent. C. has a couple of years sobriety, a good job, a loving wife, and two beautiful kids, all things that he keeps through working the steps. C. moved to town about a year ago, so he did not know Tim, but I plan on passing on a lot of things that Tim told me. Everything will be OK.
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