Ten years.

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Tim Cox 1946-2006

This is a re-post of a Thank You letter from 2006. It’s hard to believe it has been ten years since Tim died, on December 15, 2006. Sometimes it seems like yesterday.

December 28, 2006

Dear Friends,

There is so much I would like to say to everyone who has expressed their love and concern for Tim’s family and me. A thank-you note or card just isn’t sufficient to tell you how grateful we are for your friendship and caring for Tim, and for us. Several people have asked and yes, an audio CD was made of the funeral and I’ll be glad to send you one. Just give me a call. It was a special time of celebration of Tim’s faith and courage.

Tim’s death has left a huge hole in the lives of the many people he loved and who loved him. We depended on him for so many things, despite the challenges he faced. He made us laugh, made us grateful for his love, and made us grateful that we knew him. He was more than my husband, he was my dearest and best friend from the first day I met him. He was truly God’s gift to us all.

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.

When I think more about what he is doing now, first and foremost I think of praise and worship, face to face with Jesus, Tim’s Savior and Lord. Then organizing and arranging and meeting and greeting keep coming to my mind. Organizing transition activities, first for himself to get used to all his new abilities and tasks, and then helping do that for others. Arranging schedules for training and implementing those abilities. And meeting and greeting family and friends who went ahead of him, especially his grandmother and his dad, but many others who Tim loved.

I truly believe our assignments in eternity depend on how we fulfill the assignments God gives us here on earth. 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. Also, I believe he still had every friend he’d ever made and he stayed in touch with most of them throughout the years. He spent the last few weeks of his life calling everyone he knew to wish them a Merry Christmas and catch up on the news about their lives and families.

I am convinced that today Tim is busy helping and encouraging other arrivals in heaven, those who may not have had the godly parents, Bible teaching and spiritual guidance here on earth that Tim had. When I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, the Lord says to me in almost an audible voice, “Look forward, not back.” I am striving to do that, to look forward as I work on my own assignments, working to make the Lord – and Tim –  proud of the way I do those here.

Would you please keep in touch? Tim’s friends and family have become very much my own friends and family over the years. He loved and cared for people from his heart and it was contagious. Thank you again for your kindness.

Bette Cox

For more about Tim’s life, and his death, click on these links.

https://talkwithbette.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/still-missing-tim-seven-years-in-heaven-now/

http://www.bettecox.com/timcoxstory.html

Introducing Paul Gaymon, Attorney at Law

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Paul Gaymon

My son, Paul Gaymon, has started his own law firm, The Gaymon Law Firm, PLLC. He helps people with substantial tax debt and other serious financial problems.

Paul is licensed in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., but can represent clients throughout the United States before the Internal Revenue Service. His web site is http://www.gaymonlaw.com. Take a look!

Words mean things

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1960s, power of words, words mean things

X-rated movies were unheard of in Florence, SC when my children were toddlers. Some smaller towns nearby aired off-color films in their theaters, late at night and with little advertising.

But then one of our main Florence theaters began advance advertising for a “coming attraction,” our very first adult film with an X-rating.

The local daily paper carried the ad on the appropriate entertainment page; it was one of those in-your-face, I-dare-you-to-object sort of advertisements.

Reading the ad with misgivings, I carefully checked to see what hours the film would run. Surely it wouldn’t be until late in the evening, after normal family movie-goer hours, I thought. No. It would be run in the usual evening prime-time slot for several days.

One well-known and well-thought-of family had owned our local movie houses for many years. I wouldn’t have thought they’d be agreeable to this (I still don’t know if they were), or if they were being required to offer this movie in order to get other, more popular films of the day.

No matter. We had a few days’ notice, so I knew if anyone wanted to protest, they could write letters to the theater owners. I wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. I wish I had kept a copy – it was titled, Words Mean Things.

It wasn’t just that I objected to showing this type of movie in Florence. I objected to the offensive advertising, the marquee posters that would appear, the billboards and the newspaper ads. I objected to the words and the images that would be seen not just by the adults the film was designed for, but by the children of our area.

That movie house was right on the main street of our town, right between a residential and commercial area. It was sandwiched between family restaurants and grocery stores.

It was an excellent location for a theater, actually. But not for the kind of blatant, off-color images and language that would accompany that movie – which would be the first of many such rated films, if this one succeeded in airing.

The newspaper didn’t change a single word of my letter. Since it was over their usual word limit, the editor called to ask my permission to publish it without changes of any kind. There was no editing, no cutting. The letter ran as-is.

But the movie never ran.

A few days after my letter was published, another ad appeared: Due to public sentiment the X-rated movie had been cancelled. Apparently my letter had hit a nerve. Many other people wrote letters of their own, followed by many phone calls to the theater owners.

The powers that be – whoever they were – feared a full-scale protest was about to happen, complete with marchers carrying signs. I didn’t foresee that happening and certainly didn’t suggest any such thing, but it was a definite possibility had the film ever opened in Florence.

Well, it was a long time after that before Florence did run an X-rated movie, and by then I didn’t live in town and didn’t keep up with movie fare.

But I’ve never forgotten the power of the words. Words mean things, but the message won’t get out if those words aren’t spoken. Or written.

Giving of thanks

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Thanksgiving

This may be the first Thanksgiving I stay home, alone. No family dinners, no church dinners, no dinners out at a local restaurant.

In years past this day was usually spent in someone else’s house, grandparents or in-laws, with my contribution limited to a covered dish or two.

All that changed the year after Tim died. Invitations still arrived. Occasionally I accepted, prepared a covered dish and traveled to a relative’s home, and occasionally I declined.

One year I attended Thanksgiving dinner at my church, sitting with several people I knew and hoping for a relaxed, meaningful conversation around the table. But no, it was as if the other folks were in a hurry to gobble down their turkey and return home to watch a football game, take a nap or something.

Not a fast eater myself, after the first twenty minutes or so I was left to munch the balance of my meal alone. Might as well have been back at home.

Last year a group of family members and I dined at a local buffet restaurant, standing in line for a long while before being crowded into a dining room surrounded by hundreds of like-minded (“I didn’t feel like cooking this year”) strangers.

Elbow to elbow our group crammed into place against an outside wall. Plates and tea glasses jostled one another on a too-small table in the too-noisy room. It was hard to have any conversation, let alone a relaxed one.

This year I made an executive decision. I will stay home.

Meat is off my menu now (whole foods plant-based diet), so no turkey. But favorite dishes are easy to prepare at home, like brown rice with black or red beans, topped with finely chopped onions and a dash of hot sauce. Accompanied by cole slaw or steamed kale.

Or maybe broccoli and whole-wheat pasta. Perhaps grilled zucchini with yellow squash as a side dish, and/or marinated raw vegetables (diced tomatoes/celery/green peppers/onion/cucumbers with a splash of vinegar and olive oil and a sprinkle of Mrs. Dash). Hmm.

Red-skinned potatoes steamed with thin-sliced cabbage and onions sound good… I might bake a couple of sweet potatoes for dessert or mid-afternoon snack.

Oh well, I’ll decide when I get up in the morning, fix whatever strikes my fancy while watching a parade or two. All that sounds colorful, doesn’t it? And it will be delicious!

After lunch will come old movies and a nap. Maybe a book. It will be the most thankful, “thanksgivingness” Thanksgiving day I’ve had in a long time. I will enjoy every minute, being grateful to the Lord who has blessed me tremendously this year.

 

Anniversary – sad and happy

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Anniversary, family reunions, heaven, Tim

Timothy C. Cox 7/11/46 – 12/15/06 (at the Powers Family Reunion, 2005)

Eight years. It seems like such a long time in many ways, not so long in other ways. “Happy anniversary, honey.” That may seem weird to some people, but not to the Lord, I’m sure. And not to Tim.

Tim’s death left a huge hole in the lives of the many people he loved and who loved him. He made us laugh, made us grateful for his love, and made us grateful that we knew him. He was more than my husband, he was my dearest and best friend from the first day I met him. He was truly God’s gift to us all.

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.

When I think more about what he is doing now, first and foremost I think of praise and worship, face to face with Jesus, Tim’s Savior and Lord. Then, meeting and greeting keep coming to my mind. Meeting and greeting family and friends who went ahead of him, especially his grandmother and his dad, but many others who Tim loved. Here’s a post from one of my other blogs, Speaking of Heaven, about that.

Touching Base
13 February 2010

What is Tim doing? I asked the Lord one evening. It was just a random question before going to sleep; I don’t ask that every night any more, like I did for a while. I got an instant answer and then a little explanation to go with it.

“Meeting with relatives.”

Oh, I thought. Ora Lee, Theron, T.C., Ninie, others of their family came to mind. When I began to visualize the way they looked the last time I saw them, I was quickly corrected.

“No, that’s not how they are here.”

Suddenly I received a new mental image of them, each one as an adult in the prime of their life, strong, vibrant and healthy. T.C. no longer looked like a 19 year old. Ora Lee didn’t look 87 and Tim didn’t look 60. They all looked around 30 years old or so.

That started a whole new conversation with the Lord, as he began describing these family meetings.

Their relationships on earth had certain characteristics: Tim was Ora Lee’s son, T.C.’s uncle, and Ninie’s nephew. Their life experiences were very different, person to person. Their eras, education, friendships, cultures and societal standings were very different. Their relating to one another, their interests and conversations with each other singly or in family groups were on the basis of all of that.

But they’re not like that now. They relate to one another now as mature adults with a common status: all residing in heaven because of their commitment to Christ.

There are still differences, of course, and thus the meetings. Some have been there a long time, some a short time. Some have traveled and met many other residents, friends, relatives, characters from the pages of the Bible and secular history. Some live in one community, some in another. Some are studying one thing, working at one thing. Others have different assignments, different habitats, even different ways of worship.

Some of these family members lived 100 years ago or longer – Tim had never met them here on earth. Neither had Ora Lee or Ninie, for that matter. Others in the meeting were great-great grandparents, cousins or aunts and uncles they never knew existed before reaching heaven. The lives these relatives had enjoyed in heaven were longer than those they’d lived on earth. What memories they had to share, what adventures, discoveries, revelations and insights!

And so, from time to time they meet. They touch base and get to know one another, not as young versus old, ancestor versus descendant, but as equals: adult residents of heaven who share a common bloodline physically, and because of Christ, spiritually.

As I drifted off to sleep, I saw them milling around in someone’s living room, chatting in small groups, smiling and laughing, sharing interesting stories of their life, some listening intently, nodding their heads in agreement or understanding, gesturing with large arm movements, displaying the wide variety of human expressions you would see in any earthly family reunion. Wonderful.

“Family reunion” has acquired an entirely new definition and dimension for me.

Click here to read this post and other thoughts about Heaven… http://speakingofheaven.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/touching-base/

Ties

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Tim's ties

I finally gave away the last of Tim’s ties last week. These were my special favorites, a group I have held onto since Tim died. I always enjoyed seeing them in my closet, sort of smiling at me like old friends.

A friend came over to help me clean out closets recently. When I started pulling out clothes to donate that I knew I’d never wear again, there were those lovely ties. Ties that someone else could wear and enjoy, as Tim had so many times.

If I didn’t give them up now, I knew I probably never would. So I did.

I may just print one of these images, tape it to a prominent spot in my office and let them smile at me right on.

Here is a photo showing Tim wearing one of those ties… in most photos he’s not wearing a tie so I’m glad I found this one. It was taken at a breakfast prayer meeting we hosted for Governor David Beasley.

Mother’s Day is coming up

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daddy, mama, Mimi, Mother's Day

There’s so much to notice in this photograph, taken by my photographer father on some special occasion – perhaps even Mother’s Day. Click on it to enlarge. I remember that apartment on West Palmetto Street, upstairs in a large two-story house just a few doors down from the intersection with Coit Street. Only commercial buildings are located in that block now.

Mother’s Day brings back so many memories…

Mama died in 1970. Mama’s mother, my grandmother Mimi, died in 1973. Daddy’s mother died when I was only two and I have no memories of her at all, but I wish they were all still here to celebrate Mother’s Day with me. Here’s a slightly re-arranged post from several years ago, copied from my blog S.C. Family Memories.

When I was small I loved to make Mother’s Day cards for mama. Even if I had purchased something I still made the cards for her. Usually they were multi-layer creations: when you opened the first page, there was a smaller page glued inside, and another inside that. Each page featured a hand-drawn, crayon-colored picture, maybe a flower or a heart, and each page said “I Love You, Mama.” I might spend several hours with scissors, rubber cement and crayolas, sometimes starting over several times until I got my masterpiece just right.

After she died in 1970 I came across an old pasteboard box with the flaps folded into each other. Prying it open I discovered my birth certificate, baby clothes, baby book, old report cards, piano recital programs, and handfuls of those home-made cards I’d given her. It looked like she had saved every one I’d ever made. I sat there a long time, fingering those little pages and re-reading each one. I think about that a lot these days when Mother’s Day rolls around.

Here’s another great photo of mama taken by daddy, not sure where. It may have been taken in Florence, but could have been anywhere from Newport News, Virginia to Albuquerque, New Mexico, places where they were stationed during WWII.

A while back I wrote that everything I really needed to know I learned in kindergarten. That’s not completely true. I also learned a great many things from my mother and grandmother, my aunts, from Sunday School teachers, public school teachers, the mothers of friends, and a lot of other women.

The main one, though, was mama. Mama always worked outside the home. Before I was born she did clerical work on the military bases where Daddy was stationed. After I was born she worked in an office downtown. Bad parenting? No, economics. My brother and I didn’t consider it being “deprived;” it was just the way things were.

But when mama was home in the evenings and on weekends, we were learning things. Like chores. Chores were divvied up like pieces of a pie. Our house, no matter where we lived, had white woodwork. Today a lot of houses lack woodwork around doors and windows. Saves on housework, that’s for sure. Our semi-gloss woodwork collected stray fingerprints and smudges like a magnet. Amongst laundry-folding, furniture-dusting and trash-emptying, removing “not white” marks from door jambs and windowsills was a weekly responsibility.

Washing dishes was my daily duty after school. There weren’t many plates and forks to wash but oh those pots and pans! Steel wool time. Every afternoon I dillied and dallied until it was nearly time for mama’s car to drive up before I ran the dishwater. Seldom did I get an early start and have the kitchen spick and span before her arrival home. Soon it was time to peel something like onions or potatoes, slice something like cucumbers or tomatoes, or grate something, like cheese. Cheese for cheese biscuits, cheese for macaroni and cheese, cheese for cheese grits, any of which was a favorite on the supper menu; or cabbage for cole slaw, which wasn’t.

In between chores, mama taught us the three R’s, particularly reading, from the time we could hold one of those thick-paged baby books. While my grandmother Mimi subscribed to every magazine she could think of, mama loved books. There were library books, new and used paperbacks and hardback books on many different subjects. How-to books on electricity, plumbing and math, informational books on Southern Snakes or Southern Skies, science fiction books by Isaac Asimov et al and Christian books by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale — everywhere you looked there was a book or two on an end table. Reading for themselves and reading to us was as natural to my parents as preparing meals or paying bills. You just did it.

Mama also loved piddling around the house, piddling around the yard, and piddling around the sky. That’s how she put it. She encouraged us to piddle too. “I’m just piddling,” she’d say as she stitched something up, like old draperies to make sofa cushions, or old skirts to make aprons.

“I’m just piddling,” she’d say as she planted marigolds and zinnias, chrysanthemums and asters in neat graduated rows against the front yard fence. She’d explain about ladybugs and garden snails, and why some weeds were fine and some were not. She’d never just pull up a dandelion, she’d solemnly explain if you blow the thing to smithereens and scatter all those fluffy seeds, which yes indeed did look like fun, there would be zillions of them next year stealing all the good nutrients from the pretty zinnias, see?

“I’m just piddling,” mama would say as she lugged out the telescope to watch sputnik go over on a clear night. (I wonder how many households owned a telescope in those days.) “Come look, the stars are so pretty tonight. And would you make me a milkshake and bring it when you come?” I’d carefully measure out a spoonful of vanilla flavoring, stir two spoonfuls of sugar into a tall glass of milk, drop in several ice cubes and join mama’s sputnik-watching, or Big-Dipper watching, or man-in-the-moon watching.

When I needed spending money over and above my weekly allowance, mama taught me how to do office work. She’d bring home box-fulls of envelopes and letters, show me the proper way to fold a page in thirds and stuff it in an envelope, then the easy way to seal a batch of stuffed envelopes. Fan the flaps out so only the gummed part of each one is showing, then run a damp sponge across all the flaps at once and quickly flip each flap into place. Nothing to it. She’d pronounce my work acceptable and pay me a dollar or so. We’d discuss many things while we worked, school, friends, hair styles, grades, books, newspaper articles, homework assignments — come to think of it, school got into our conversation a lot in those days.

Mama was a classroom volunteer and for some reason I don’t remember what exactly she did. Maybe she brought cookies or something, who knows. One thing I do remember, though. She was voted the prettiest mother in the 8th grade at Poynor. I was dumbfounded to learn my classmates adored my mother. I knew I adored my mama, but I had no idea anybody else’s kids did too. I was impressed!

There are lots more memories but for now, here’s wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to mothers of all ages, to those who still have their mothers or grandmothers with them, and to those who, like me, wish they did.

Mimi and why I love murder mysteries

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1940s, childhood

The summers I spent with my grandmother Mimi and my grandfather Da weren’t all ordinary work in the house, yard, garden or farm. I did my share of exploring and excavating the sand hill dirt for arrowheads. Found a few, too.

My brother Bud, young uncle Mike and I climbed our share of chinaberry trees, stringing tobacco twine and tin cans for telephones or walkie-talkies. Police detectives! Soldiers! Spies! We quarreled over who’d be the good guys since no-one wanted to be the enemy – they always lost.

I felt my share of itchy sawdust inside my jeans from zooming down the sawdust piles on makeshift sleds of pine bark. I received my fair share of maypop hand grenade blasts, coating the outside of my jeans with more sawdust. Red bugs loved sawdust as much as I did, I discovered. Kerosene in the bathwater! Mimi scrubbed our jeans with lye soap, muttering under her breath words not understandable to young ears, probably not repeatable either.

But some days it rained and some days it was just too hot to play outside. One such afternoon I was helping Mimi with butterbean shelling when the mailman’s car pulled up to the edge of the yard. Mimi set down her pan, shook out her apron, and walked out to the mailbox. She pulled out catalogs addressed to Occupant or to grandpa, sorted through duns and circulars, and that’s when our day became a bit more fun. Her True Crime magazine and Reader’s Digest had arrived.

Mimi and Da got the Florence newspaper delivered bright and early every morning. In the mail, Da got his farm-to-market bulletins and Popular Mechanics and Farmer’s Almanac. In a pinch these would do for light reading, if you were bored enough. But Mimi subscribed to True Crime and Reader’s Digest, McCall Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Woman’s Day, and Red Book!

Back inside the house, we took a break. Mimi leaned back in her armchair with her feet propped up, I sprawled on the sofa by the window and she handed me the Reader’s Digest. She kept the True Crime.

Mimi loved murder mysteries. She enjoyed short stories and hard news. Biographical articles. Recipes. Gardening, repairing, sewing, buying and selling, but she loved adventure stories and murder mysteries. And I learned to read and enjoy them too, right along with the short stories, hard news, even the Farmer’s Almanac and Popular Mechanics.

On days when I had no playmates for company, I created my own. I meandered along ditch banks from one end of the tobacco fields to the other, ignoring blackberry brambles and sandspurs as I plotted mysteries of my own. I foiled many dastardly deeds as I went, demolishing dirt clods and bad guys. In my stories I always won the heart of the brave detective and became the toast of the town, or something equally wonderful.

When school time rolled around, not only did I head for new classes with new teachers and new classmates, I headed for the library. Nancy Drew. The Hardy Boys. Mignon Eberhardt. Agatha Christie. My parents didn’t subscribe to all the magazines that Mimi did, but I discovered the library got copies too so I didn’t miss out in those months away from Mimi’s stacks.

Today, I still love murder mysteries. I have a collection of my own that grows by leaps and bounds since the advent of E-Bay. I no longer stroll along ditch banks, tobacco fields or blackberry vines, today I just peddle away on my exercise bike. But I still plot my own adventure stories and murder mysteries as I go, and still us good guys always win… Thank you, Mimi!

(Reprinted from S.C. Family Memories 2010, published as Mimi, my ordinary grandmother Part 2)