I look forward to seeing Tim at Duke Basketball game this fall. Getting help from Iron Dukes to find some tickets for Linda and Tim... and hopefully for me as well!
Linda and Tim: you need to write a book.... I will buy 10 copies!'
-- Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Dr. Lloyd Hey, Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery
My Friday
the 13th Blessings – by Linda
On Friday, July 13, 2012, I took my son, Timothy, to see Dr. Lloyd Hey of the Hey Clinic in Raleigh for his 6 mo. post-op appt. following the spinal fusion surgery he had in January 2012 to correct a 106 degree forward curve of the spine.
As we traveled to
Raleigh I put in a CD in the CD player entitiled, “Believe – Songs of Faith
from Today’s Top Country & Christian Artists.” When the CD got to a song released in 2003 entitled,
“God’s Will”, by Martina McBride, the tears started one by one down my cheeks
as I listened to the words of this precious song that I hadn’t heard in a long
time, because I could relate to many of the words she sings and have also seen
first hand how my son touches other people’s lives. If you’re not familiar with this song,
here are some of the words:
I
Met God’s Will on a Halloween night; he was dressed as a bag of leave that hid the
braces on his legs at first….
His smile was as bright as the
August sun when he looked at me…………..
Will
don’t walk too good, Will don’t
talk too good, he won’t do the things that the other kids do….
I’ve
been searching, wondering, thinking, lost and looking all my lifel
I’ve
been Wounded, jaded, loved and hated, I’ve wrestled wrong and right……….………………
………….I’ve
been reading, writing, praying, fighting;
I
guess I would be still, yeah, that
was until I knew God’s Will …………….
At dinner he’d ask to pray and
then he prayed for everybody in the world but him……….
…………..Each day that I have him,
well it’s just another gift………..
………….The boy showed me the
truth…………..me and God love you!
OK, it was a very
tearful song for me, but I pulled myself together to continue on to Raleigh!
At the appt. with Dr.
Hey, Dr. Hey told Tim he was working on getting tickets for him and Tim to go
to a Duke basketball game this fall, so Tim was pretty excited about that news!
On the way back from Raleigh, I
wanted to stop at the Tanger Outlet stores in Mebane, NC, since I hadn’t been
there yet. After doing a
little shopping in the Bass store we wondered down the way and we came to the
Nike store, I said to Tim, “Let’s go in and see if we can’t find you a new pair
of high tops,” since his current
ones were a little small and uncomfortable for him.
Now Tim has been a HUGE Duke fan since the days of Christian
Laettner, Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley when Tim was only 4 years old!!! So we browsed the racks of Duke
clothing before we reached the athletic shoes. We looked at all the white and Duke Blue Nike high tops and
we picked a pair to try on him.
They looked great and he said they felt comfortable. I left them on him, and was gathering
my purse and the empty box to take up front to purchase, when along came a
rather tall man and he looks at Tim sitting in his wheelchair wearing a Duke #1
jersey and the Duke Blue and white Nike high tops on and starts shaking his
head and teasing Tim saying, “Nice shoes, but wrong color.” And I said to the man, “ I suppose you
think he should get this color blue” and pointed to a pair of Carolina Blue
shoes on the end display.” And he
said, “ yeah you need that color blue!” And Tim just laughs and smiles ear to ear because he’s
so use to this kind of bantering and always gets a charge out of it! By this time a little group of customers and sales associates
were standing around us observing
this teasing that is going on with Tim.
But then, the man says, “hey I’ll buy them if I can get you
to wear that color blue!”
Whoah! Now we’re getting
serious here! He asked me
what size shoe Tim wore and I said 10.5 The onlookers, Tim and I were amazed and surprised and
we all just stood there. Then
the man asked one of the sales associates, if she’d check and see if they had
that shoe in a 10.5 and she does and comes out with a box in her hands. Then the man asks Tim again if he’d
wear them if he bought them for him, and Tim smiles and says yeah! So the man asked the sales associate to
take them up front and put them on his bill!
When the crowd
disburses and I’m left with Tim and these Duke blue and white Nikes on his
feet, I asked Tim if he still wanted me to buy them for him, or take them off
and put them back on the shelf. He
had a hard time deciding but finally confirmed he just wanted the Carolina blue
Air Jordans that the man was buying for him! And then the
man comes walking back to us and puts the box in Tim’s lap and we thank him for
his generosity!
I’m always amazed and tongue tied at the acts of random
kindness we experience at times when we’re in the community. Tim is 27 and has severe Cerebral
Palsy. He’s trapped in his body
physically and he’s non-verbal, but he has a happiness and joy within that
radiates through his eyes, smile and laughter that speak volumes and just has a
way of attracting people to him.
And now, Tim is having a really good time wearing those
Carolina Blue Nike Air Jordans and getting all this attention from people with
a lot of bantering and laughing going on, and sharing the story over and over
of how Tim got those shoes, especially from people who know Tim is a huge Duke
fan!
So, when we get off our exit off I-85 and I turned left to
go toward home, there right in front of us was a huge rainbow! And I asked Tim if he could see that
rainbow and he said, “yeah!”
And I said, “wow Tim, this sure has been a special day with
many blessings and God topped it off with a rainbow!” And Tim agreed, because we surely had been blessed on
Friday, July 13th!
