Tears seeped out of the corners of my eyes as the masseuse tried to massage all my worries away. It helped, but her fingers failed to erase the emotional pain. I took the 45 minutes to think, ponder what would become of us. I knew deep down that the future looked bleak, but I also knew that God had the situation in His very capable Hands. As usual, the last 10 minutes at the very end of the massage were spent sitting up on a stool as the masseuse worked on the shoulders and neck muscles. Directly in front of me was a clock on the wall, one of those cheap, little white plastic numbers you can get at Wal Mart. For some strange reason my eyes were drawn to that clock. I could not peel my eyes away from the hands as they slowly ticked their way towards 12:00 noon on that Thursday. I watched, seemingly mesmerized until the hands both aligned themselves, reaching straight up marking the hour as 12:00 p.m. At that precise moment my massage was done and I dressed, paid and prepared to run next door to the grocery store.
Back at the house Tim meticulously cleaned his gun, leaving the cleaning supplies and extra bullets scattered thru out the blankets and sheets. He had the presence of mind to put our black lab, Charcoal out into the back yard and our three cats, Frodo, Sesa and Hamlet into Haley's room and closed the door. He then composed a suicide note and taped it to the screen of his laptop which was open and sitting on the table next to his favorite chair. He even thought to set his wallet out, with his drivers license pulled out and lying next to it so that there would be no problem identifying him. Gunshot wounds to the head are messy and an individual cannot always be easily identified. And then, he dialed 911 at exactly noon, telling them that there was to be a suicide at our address and that the doors would be unlocked. And with the 911 operator still on the line, Tim put the gun to his temple, pulled the trigger and made history. For there has never been, to our knowledge, another licensed minister of the UPCI to commit suicide, ever.
I walked the aisles of Fry's while on the phone with my concerned mother. I tried to concentrate on what I needed to purchase for the baby shower, but just could not get my brain to cooperate. I think I must have gone up and down the party supply aisle at least ten times before I decided upon what I wanted. I went to the bakery and picked up the cake, checked it to make sure it said what I wanted it to say. Finally I was done and headed toward the checkout line. It was there at the cash register that I heard the sirens......lots of them, and they were not far, definitely in the area. I believe I even mention to the cashier that there must be something really bad going on. I paid, gathered my purchases, loaded them into the car and as I was pulling out of the driveway I saw Subway. I was hungry, Tim probably was too, so I decided to grab us some lunch.
I walked into Subway and as it usually is during the lunchtime rush, the line was long. I retrieved my cell phone and called Tim to find out what he wanted on his sandwich. I dialed his cell and listened to it ring and ring to eventually take me to his voicemail. I called again, same thing. This was unusual, due to the fact that Tim always answered my calls unless he was sleeping and in that case he would turn his phone off. During those times his phone would not even ring, but rather go directly to his voicemail. This told me that his phone was on, but where was he? He always kept his phone close at hand. Perhaps he was in the shower or the restroom and had forgotten the phone. I kept calling getting the same response.
Something didn't feel right, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was almost my time to order, I called again. This time his phone went directly to voicemail which meant he had either turned it off or the battery had died. Why would he turn it off when he could see that I had been trying to call? I decided to just order him what he always got. A foot long turkey on wheat, everything on it, extra lettuce. I placed the order, paid for the food and headed home.
As I drove, the anxious feelings increased as I turned into our neighborhood which was very near to the shopping center I had just come from. As I made my way towards our home I turned down the street that would take me to the street we lived on. I prepared to make a right hand turn onto our street when God spoke to me again, very clearly and very powerfully. He simply said, "You are going to see something very bad when you turn the corner, brace yourself."
My breathing was short and rapid, my heart racing as I turned that corner. To my horror, my house was surrounded by police tape. Police cars and emergency vehicles were everywhere. As I pulled up in front of my home I looked to my left, and there, parked on the side of the road across from our home was the County Coroner's truck. I knew then that Tim was dead.
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