The Man Who Helped Me Walk On Water

When I received the news that Tim Thomas had passed, one of his best pieces of advice kept replaying over and over again in my head:

Don’t be a sissy!

The Foster family first encountered Tim and the wild tribe of Thomas at church. “What a holy family” I remember thinking at the father having two New Testament names. It was along the soccer field though, where Tim began his legend with us kids. I remember watching him coach the opposing side thinking, that man actually believes these kids can do something.

One winter weekend Tim took Jared and me up the mountain. Despite near white out conditions Tim made us drop in. The hammering snow and wind made the runs dangerous and thrilling. Tim had a grin a mile wide while Jared and I constantly gave each other that look of “are we going to die?” I remember that drive home down the mountain with a barely visible road. Tail lights fading in and out from view not far from the windshield. Tim was undeterred in his 90s Subaru with four wheel drive and you know what, we made it down the mountain alive.

Once, Tim took us out to the Colorado river for a week for some wakeboarding. He wore Jared and me out so bad that by the third day we were playing with rocks on the beach, unsure if we could still swim when we fell in. Tim then had Jared drive the boat as I ran the flags despite neither of us having experience driving anything. Tim out classed us carving up wakes while taunting Jared to give it more pace.

By the time the Thomas family moved to Hawaii, Tim had become a full fledged waterman. He could surf for hours and kayak for miles, often in the same day. When I became a man, Tim invited me to come out on the water in the outrigger with him. Miles from shore in the open ocean I had one of my life’s defining moments. Every muscle in my arms, shoulders, and back felt as though they were tearing open as I again and again struck my oar against the ocean. The wind began to whip the swells making it hard to see Tim over their peaks not far from me. I remember barely glimpsing the shore with clouds scattered over the sand quickly giving way to the jungle rising on the Olomana mountains. There by the Mokulua islands I tipped my outrigger and fell in.

Despite over a decade of surfing, I had never been in this deep. I started to panic as I imagine Saint Peter did when he began to sink. Tim paused his encouraging shark stories to give me something resembling half a laugh and half a cheer. It was about time the Pacific humbled me. Then Tim did what he did best. He coached me through every movement of the vessel and my body. In that moment it wasn’t merely that he knew everything about one man outrigger, he knew seemingly everything about the human mind and body. An arm here, a tuck and roll there, swing around, plant your glutes, stick your feet. Move the oar this way with your whole body. Despite all the forces of the earth rolling in mountains of water across the ocean, I right sided the twenty foot outrigger and now in my seat, it felt as though I was flying. Around the Mokes, across the bay and back down the canal to the house, I had brought the outrigger back home albeit breathing heavily. Tim carried both our outriggers in from the beach with ease.

After sunset that night, Tim joined Jared and I at the fire pit for a cigar and glass of wine. “You did alright today Steven”. Four miles of open ocean. Only a tenth of Moloka’i Hoe. I remember thinking that evening Tim really is ten times stronger than me. In fact, for my entire life, Tim had always seemed ten times stronger than Jared and I combined. Even in the prime of our lives, Tim, roughly thirty years older than us, lived ten times more than anybody.

When I went to write this piece, a verse in Saint John’s Gospel kept coming to me, “I have come that they may have life, and have it fully”1. Tim lived centuries of life in what seemed to you and me like decades. He lived life to the fullest and gave it away generously with every opportunity. I feel blessed to have known him from my earliest days kicking around a soccer ball, to walking on every kind of water from the frozen mountains, to the flowing rivers, and untamed oceans. Tim gave me, as he did so many, a confidence that can only come from heaven; a faith we all can carry into eternity.

Whenever I feel scared and think about how many times God says to those he loves, “Do not be afraid”. I will remember always Tim’s translation in his own voice, saying:

Don’t be a sissy!

-Steven