Timothy James Fadel, 1977-2008

I just found out today that the brother of one of my old friends died last Saturday.

When I was in high school, I started going to a youth group at Lynch Baptist Church in southeast Portland. One of my friends from that group was Todd Fadel; he had a younger brother named Tim. I didn’t know Tim as well as Todd, just because of the fact that most of the time I was at Lynch, I only attended the high school group, and Tim was never actually in the group while I was there. Nevertheless, I saw him around church, and he was kind of a friend by proxy.

Over the past year or so, since joining MySpace and Facebook, I have had the chance to see Tim’s name pop up here and there. Todd's page has had some videos of Tim doing silly things. Now, I doubt that all these years later, he would even remember who I was – after all, I was a friend of his older brother’s in high school, and not even like a best friend or anything. Just another dude in the youth group. Nevertheless, I'm still sad to hear of his passing after a long battle with cancer, and at such a young age of 31.

I did a quick Google search of Tim’s name, and found a blog post by one of his former high school friends. In the post she talks about how good natured and friendly Tim was, and she also quoted a poem he wrote in his journal (perhaps a blog; I haven’t determined the original source) right before he died. It’s such a wonderful look at the heart of a man who’s just gone to Heaven, written by one who was on its threshold:

I am here now.
I am finally home.
I can breathe. I can run. I can see color.
I am certain of love.
I have complete joy and complete peace.
I am exploring every corner of my imagination.
I am laughing with my family.
(Job says "hi" and not to stress about the little things)
I am singing and playing instruments.
I am playing ping pong and basketball.
I am resting.
I am free.
I am here with you.
I am here with God.

...Oh and I may have an overdue library book too, if someone could check on that for me, thanks.

According to his obituary on OregonLive, there's a memorial service/celebration of his life tomorrow at 2 p.m. at New Hope Community Church. I think it'd be worth your time to go, if you were ever a friend of Tim Fadel...even by proxy.