my dear Timmy..

The MoonFlower holds a very special place in my heart for you. I’m remembering with a heavy heart the night you left us & I was with your Mom on her outdoor porch in NoHo. An amazing Bloom of White appeared. A beautiful MoonFlower. 1st either of us had witnessed.  We both believe that YOU joined us. Now tonight MY 1st MoonFlower appeared and all I could think was “Tim is saying Hello”. Kisses & Hugs to you Tim

There is a tab from a beer can that Tim had dropped in the yard two summers ago when he was here helping me stack wood at my new house. I never picked it up, and probably never will. Once in a while I come across it and it is a nice reminder that he was here with us all.

Tim got up very early one morning, who knows why?  Probably to go fishing.  The dawn sky over the lake was dramatic, and Tim borrowed my camera to capture it.

This is the view from Tim's favorite place in Greensboro, and it is his final resting place.  Although we scattered his ashes in the fall, this is a spring-time photo, as can be seen by the red buds of the maple trees.

I am so grateful when I last saw Tim this summer, he and I shared the biggest bearhug.  I was trying to offer to pay him for all the work he had done at our farmhouse in Greensboro replacing the electrical wires that had been destroyed by burglers.  He worked on the project for weeks and refused any payment.  He told me he appreciated all the years he had joined my family and friends for feasts at the farm. He felt he was one of the gang and this was one small way to give back.  Tim, I shall carry this memory and your sweet smile forever forward . 
Love, Zoe

These are  six maple trees Tim and I planted at Blue Fox Run Golf Course in Avon, CT. 

   

Eulogy

Timothy Richard Mullaney

1973  - 2013

Written by Nancy Muller

Read by Booke Hauser Mac Donald

Memorial Service  -  October 12, 2013

Tim Mullaney was a close family member in our rather large family for all of his brief life of forty years.  For most of his adult life, Tim managed to set family apart from friends on his short journey here on planet Earth.  Tim was a longtime good friend to many of you who are here today.  The sad thing is, 40 years moved too fast and he left us too soon.  We are all one and have always been all one with Tim in our world.  Now we gather together on this day to celebrate Timothy’s life.

Tim’s early childhood was shared with his parents and older sister who resided in New York City where he was born, Long Island and Nashville.  At age five, his parents divorced.   Tim and sister Tammy moved with Nancy, his mother, to Holyoke Massachusetts, to reside briefly with his grandparents and then moved to several Connecticut towns … settling in Simsbury.  From age 8 or so, Tim travelled with Tammy to visit their father, Richard Mullaney, during summer vacations … many times back and forth to Africa, then to the Solomon Islands, Fiji and to the cabin in South Dakota.

In his early 20’s, Tim chose the direction of his own path going straight forward into his life it seems, leaving behind communications with his Muller family and Mullaney family:  his mother, father, sister, grand-parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and nieces. 

A sincere wish is that this quote from Ernest Hemingway… whose work Tim kept,  is one Tim truly believed and would say to all of us himself:  

“I’m with you no matter what else you have in your head. 

I’m with you and I love you.”

Today, the Muller family and Mullaney family would quote Ernest Hemingway again and say to their beloved Timothy with heavy hearts: 

“No one you love is ever truly lost.”

 A quote from Tim’s mother, Nancy Muller:   

“I will always hold you in my heart, Tim.  I know you loved me – even at your distance.  I love you so very much.  I will forever cherish memories of you.   I held never-ending hope for you to come home.  Now I am looking for peace and understanding.  I wish peace to all of us, but especially to you, my dear son Tim.”

____________

A quote from Tim’s father, Richard Mullaney:

“When Timothy was young he liked to read the works of Henry David Thoreau.  Thoreau lived alone in the woods near Walden Pond in Massachusetts in the 1800s.  Thoreau wrote about what made a life worthwhile.  Timothy once told me that Thoreau had written:

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

I believe this belief shaped Timothy’s view of how to live. 

He once told me another story about Thoreau.  While living quietly at Walden Pond, the police visited Thoreau and said he had not paid his taxes. Thoreau said he did not believe in taxes. Thoreau was put in jail. While in jail he was visited by his good friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, a famous writer. Emerson said to Thoreau “Henry, what are you doing in that jail?” and Thoreau responded “Ralph, what are you doing out of it?”  Thoreau’s beliefs were very personal and very strong. So to were Timothy’s.  Timothy did not talk about his beliefs much, but he definitely had a very strong set of rules that he followed.  

I have been living and working in Thailand for more than twelve years. Thailand is a Buddhist country, almost all the people are raised to be Buddhist and it is a way of life for them.  Every community in Thailand has a Buddhist Temple.  The temples have an official function, they record births and deaths in the community. When someone dies, they are cremated at the temple. No one here is buried and there are no funerals and no cemeteries. . A few days after the cremation, friends and relatives of the deceased are invited to the temple, in a quiet ceremony the monks chant for about half an hour. Then tea is served and people go home.  What do the monks chant about? Buddhists believe that when someone dies, the body dies but the spirit lives on. Buddhists believe in reincarnation. The monks chant is directed at the spirit world asking that the person’s spirit be reincarnated in a new good life.  Buddhists believe that all of us have lived lives in the past, and that we will have more lives in the future.  I find this belief very positive and comforting.  I have visited my local temple and have had the monks chant for Timothy. I hope that he has now been reincarnated into a new life. I wish him a good journey.”

_____________

Tim attended 3 Colleges:  South Dakota State University, Denver Colorado Metro State and Tunxis Community College.  He was an avid reader.  From an early age, Tim aspired to “spend as much time as possible studying, thinking about and writing about philosophy.”  (from a letter Tim wrote when he was eighteen to his mom).

Tim enjoyed working hard and had many jobs including:  cooking, farming, car parts store worker, lumber yard splitter, handyman, and landscaper.  For the past several years Tim worked as a carpenter.

Listening to good music and attending live music concerts was always a hobby of Tim’s.  He loved fishing, swimming, scuba diving and travelling.

Tim explored his personal strong sense of inner space that most of us either ignore… or take for granted.  He was an explorer of both the light and dark aspects of it.  He was a thinker and dreamer.

A close friend recently said, “Everyone who ever met Tim, liked him.”

 I would like to include this excerpt from:

The Prophet … Gibran’s Masterpiece –

On Children…   by Kahlil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.(end)

In closing, we include another meaningful quote by Ernest Hemingway:

“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. 

Think of what you can do with that there is.”

One day while helping me stack wood, out of the blue, Tim went back to the house, and brought back a beautiful little shell that he had collected from somewhere and gave it to me, and I put it in my "treasure box", with other little things that meant nothing to anyone but me. That shell is now indeed a treasure and will always remind me of him.

Tim showed great talent as a woodworker, but he was inexperienced, so quite methodical and slow.  What I noticed in particular was that he almost never made a mistake.  He would think about a job for a while, measure twice (or more times), then make his cuts.

I decided to challenge him one day last year.  There was a narrow hall upstairs under the roof, and the ceiling sloped at two angles.  I wanted to put a door at the end of the hall, at the top of the stairs, but the door had to be cut to conform to the ceiling.

He professed that he could not do it, but I told him to do his best.  I pointed out that the door would be painted, so mistakes could be puttied over.  He did it, though it took a while.  It was almost perfect, more amazing because we did not really have the right tools to do precision woodworking.

When Tim and I were in Ireland, I splurged one night to stay at the Cashel House in Connemara.  Tim did not approve--it was far too "foofy."

When we sat down for dinner, the waiter picked Tim's cap off his head and dropped it in his lap.  Then he picked up the napkin, and dropped that in his lap as well.  Tim was quite upset, and I thought that the waiter had gone too far as well.  Tim was quite prepared to storm out, but I persuaded him to stay.  We had an excellent meal, with Tim's cap firmly in place!

I think Tim relished his outrage.  He kept a brochure and a postcard of the Cashel House among his souvenirs of the trip.  He mentioned the Cashel House from time to time when he wanted an example of excessive “foofiness.”

Tim in Curacao, talking with Tanya and Jeanette.

Tim enjoys the sun in Curacao.

Tim is helping out, preparing the boat and equipment for a dive in Curacao.

This is the picture that I took for Tim's passport, touched up a little to remove background artifacts.

Passport photos usually are pretty bad, but I like this one.  It's unrealistic in one respect--Tim always wore his cap, and it strange to see him without it.

Tim was an excellent scuba diver.

When he earned his open water diving certificate in Curacao, his instructor was just certified as an instructor, and Tim was his first student.

Tim learned so fast and did so well that the instructor was convinced that Tim was an experienced diver who had been planted as a test of his teaching.

We had many excellent dives after that.

Tim and his unforgettable precocious little grin.  Sweet and clever!

Tim at about age 5 or 6 here.  Taken out in front of Nana and Papa's house in Holyoke.  Same neighborhood were he shot Papa's first BB-gun!  I think he liked it there!

With a ten-hour car ride home from Maine after spending an "experiential weekend" with our Philosophy Professor and many classmates from our college, Arnie, Tim and I (along with our then-babies, Lorin and Brian) had plenty of time for long conversation. 

Tim had joined us to help with the kids and because we thought he'd love it.  This was a camp that the professor ran for super lucky kids during the summers and he had invited our class along for a gettaway before the camp opened for the season.  Tim was 12 as pictured here, with Arnie at the camp. 

During that weekend there were nice camp bunks, llamas, and beautiful farmland we experienced the ropes course, balanced above high tree limbs, swinging on a trapeze, falling into the arms of those below to learn trust and some of us even walked on fire.  Tim's take was that he loved learning how to think in new ways. 

Even at 12 he loved philosophy and actually told us that day that that's what he wanted to study.  His questions and ideas about the world were impressive to us.  We thought his early world travel gave him a unique perspective and we all became really close at that time.  

We were lucky to have had that time together.  We really loved Tim and miss him very much.

Aiming through the barrel of a BB gun, Tim and Papa pose as Papa’s giant body crouches down and folds Tim into his chest.  All arms are on the gun and simultaneously, both squint an eye and gaze toward the target.  Weeks passed before neighbors reported quite a few broken windows.

Rushing home to get dinner on after work, before going inside, I had to lock my cigarettes in the glove compartment of my car.  My kids used to run outside laughing while breaking up my cigarettes because they wanted me to quit.  I did.

Dinnertime got delayed often because Tim was out bike riding with friends down by the stream.  When we finally did sit down to dinner together, we got into the habit of lighting candles to begin our dinner in peace.

Both Tammy and Tim conspired to stop me from shopping.  They would each take an arm and literally drag me out of the mall.  In contrast, Tim had to visit ten stores to find the perfect cool pair of black sneakers.

International travels always had last minute rush scenes.  Renewing passports in Stamford was the ultimate stressor, which raised a ruckus all around us when the counter official announced to Tim, “You can be arrested today for defacing Federal property.”  He had pasted in a new photo on top of his original passport picture.  Several weeks later I got word the trip went well with an exception.  Tim arrived with an empty suitcase.  He didn’t have time to pack.

Teen years were filled with risks, rewards and ramifications with town law enforcement people.  The police were amazed that Tim could get into so much trouble without accomplices (he never squealed).  When I was going about my business around town, police officers would greet me by name. 

I cherish all memories of Tim.  His letters and cards warm my heart.  He left us too soon.  I hope Tim’s friends will tell stories here.  Hey Tim, send me your love with a pair of wings attached.   Love you forever my son,

Mom