I first met Tim Tank when I was 15 years old. A slim, eye-glass wearing, energetic twenty-something, Tim was an intern at our large mega church. He was assigned to my campus group, I believe with the purpose to make our church feel smaller since students from five different local high schools participated in our youth group. Regardless of what his actual job description was, what Tim ended up doing was making such an intentional investment in our lives that he changed all of us who were blessed to be in his orbit.
When I think back on it now, I’m overcome with gratitude that he came into my life in that season. When you’re 15, you’re waiting for your life to begin in so many ways. You’re a conflicting combination of doubt, insecurity, and arrogance. You’re dying for something exciting to happen and yet suspicious of those trying to trying to get to know you. It’s a tall order for an intern to be able to win over this age group. There is a lot I don’t remember about first meeting Tim. For example, I don’t remember when I learned that his first name was Tim- he was universally referred to as Tank- but what I do remember is that he was somehow unequivocally and unquestionably accepted by us.
Since his passing a couple weeks ago, I’ve been trying to distill why that might have been and two things have come to mind: 1) If you knew Tim, you knew that he loved you. 2) He was relentlessly optimistic and eventually you couldn’t help be won over by it.
What is remarkable about the reality that you knew Tim loved you, is the countless number of people who can say that. Somehow he could make you feel seen and known and accepted in a way that was unique to you without it being diminished in the slightest in that he was that way with everyone. You were one of many and yet you never felt that way.
Tim’s relentless optimism knew no boundaries. I lost track of the amount of times I was told, “Joce, trust me” which would immediately precede one of his endless crazy ideas that often included cramming as many of us sophomores as could fit in his tiny BMW-and often times more than could reasonably fit- and carting us off to just, I don’t know, live life, the point was that we were invited and we were doing it together.
One particularly vivid memory was the time he told me that if I asked “this one particular guy” to a dance that that guy would definitely say yes. Well, I did, but none of our friends would go with us, and I was quite miffed with Tim. His response? He grabbed my older sister, got dressed up, and went to dinner with the two of us so we wouldn’t have to go alone.
The summer before my senior year, Tim planned a short term mission trip to Mexico for that same campus group that had been assigned to him a couple years before. We were on our way home from a deeply impactful trip and he told us on a church basement floor somewhere in California that he was finishing his time in this role. I may have been the first to start crying, but I was most definitely not the last. I remember thinking about my younger sister who was just entering high school and wondering, “How is she going to get through high school without Tim?”
Fortunately for many of us, that wasn’t the end of our friendship. The picture above is from my 21st birthday when many of us were home from college, and, of course, Tim was there. He was also one of my brother-in-law’s best friends, so thankfully family would keep us in touch, and we were able to watch and cheer on each other’s seasons of raising families.
Seven years ago when Tim was first diagnosed with brain cancer, I could not believe it because it was the same cancer that took my dad not five years prior to that. The parallels from their lives have been stunning. Two deeply loving, relentlessly optimistic men of faith, whose impact on their communities reached wide and far, and who were called home to heaven in their fifties. Tim passed away on my dad’s birthday, twelve years and one day after my dad died.
It’s taken me some days to be willing to write out any words. Grief and old memories can be bittersweet companions. But in walking myself through some recollections of Tim, I’ve found a deep joy that I had a friend like him. Which makes me think of one more image to share in memoriam for Tim. One day when I was in college I was home from school and on a run near Sunset High School. Tim was driving by and stopped and pulled his car over into the parking lot. (Tim and I shared a love of running and although I ran track, he had always tried to have me quit soccer for cross country. ) “Joce!” he called out, “Just think if I could have coached you! How far you would have gone!”
This memory more than all the others is how I want to remember him and the one that brings the most tears to my eyes. I can still see him there, going out of his way to shout encouragement. This was his gift: making you believe, unquestionably, that you would go far, in whatever you set out to do, if he was in your corner.
Somehow, in preceding us in death, I don’t think his encouragement has waned. If anything, I hope his Christ-like example spurs those of us who knew him on to make similar investments in the lives of others. To love well, to have faith and hope for someone else when they can’t see it for themselves, and to not stop cheering them on. Till we see you again in glory, Tim. Thank you for being my friend.