Missing Tim

Timmy, my baby brother, had a tremendous impact on my life.  He blessed our family in person for 17 years and then moved on ahead of us 6 years ago today.  Although it has been a while since Tim's passing, memories of his life continue to bless me.  Here are a just a few of the things I remember about Timmy:

• Tim's absolute joy in living - he laughed and enjoyed the very simplest of things with a zest that could hardly be contained in his little body.
• His life was surrounded with love - with the exception of one isolated incident Tim never knew anything but love in his life, and he radiated the love he felt for others.
• His spiritual sensitivity - he recognized when spiritually significant events were occurring.  This didn't always happen, but it happened on enough occasions for us to recognize it and appreciate it.   
• His laugh - Tim laughed with his entire body
• His patience - Tim had to endure a lot of discomfort and illness in his life, but he just dealt with it and remained the sweet, happy person he always was in spite of it all.  
• His love for his family - Of course he loved his parents and siblings, but he adored his nieces and nephews, and got the biggest kick out of watching them play with and around him.

Tim was only 3 years old when I left on my mission, so I didn't really expect him to remember me when I got home two years later.  When I arrived at the airport he obviously enjoyed having so many family members around, but I could tell he didn't really remember who I was.  He picked up on the fact that the rest of the family was happy to see me and I must have seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't quite fit me in.  Throughout that first day home he kept looking at me trying to figure out where exactly he had seen me before.  I was familiar, but why was I familiar?  Then it happened - he remembered who I was and his whole face just lit up.  He laughed, straightened up his whole body and leaned over to reach for me.  For the rest of the day he laughed and giggled when I was near him.  It made my day.

Te hecho de menos carnalito.