Remembering Timmy

My friend for close to a decade, Tim Murphy, passed away last Thursday. He was driving his truck and hit a telephone pole.

Timmy and I became friends a decade ago now when he was staying at the Veterans Shelter, trying to get clean literally and figuratively. He was an iron worker who had been overwhelmed by addiction. That first year he got a job at the Shaws and eventually found subsidized housing. We spent a lot of time together and, in the end, Tim made it back onto the iron where he really wanted to be. Unfortunately he ultimately had a beam land on his leg and suffered a career ending injury with lasting pain.

Tim moved back to live with his sister to collect himself, do odd jobs and fish. His sister had yellow labs and before long I heard about the puppies that had been born. We were looking for a dog at the time so went down to check them out. Cole choose the runt of the liter and named her Penny. Penny was with us for almost a year before we decided she was just too much for us to handle (I would take her for 5 mile runs and it would have zero impact on her activity level…she’d just look at me afterwards like, “yeah, you call that a WORKOUT?!?!”). At the time Timmy was going through a rough patch, so I called him up and asked him if he wanted Penny to keep him company.

It worked out perfectly as Penny became his daily companion. I got many text messages, with photos, of Tim and Penny going fishing. Ice fishing was Tim’s favorite. He’d build a hut and go out for days on end with his little transistor radio and pull up giant fish with Penny at his side.

One thing about Timmy was that he always seemed to know when I was on the move, specially on vacation. Land in LA and my cell phone would ring. It was Timmy. Land in France, my phone would ring. It was Timmy. Land in Nantucket, as I did two weeks ago. It was Timmy wanting to check in. And no conversation with Timmy was a short one. To my wife’s great credit she came to expect it and understand that it was in some way Timmy making sure that I remembered first things first, no matter how glamorous my life might appear compared to an iron worker on worker’s comp. He kept me grounded in the truth of how little really separated us as friends despite our respective circumstances.

Tim endured plenty of hardship and stuff that if I had the right degrees I would probably call trauma on the most acute variety. But the thing that I will always remember about Timmy is that he always had a smile on his face and a warm disposition. He suffered great pain but didn’t ever take that out on anyone but himself.