Timothy Vermeer

What is a Legacy?

A Legacy focuses on what will endure, passing on things of lasting value

to those who live on after us.

It involves living intentionally and aiming to build into the next generations for their success.

Tim’s life epitomized a life of legacy

Timothy Joel Vermeer was born on October 16th 1964 in Boulder, Colorado. Tim is one of four children born to Laurell and Harold Vermeer. He is survived by his siblings: Robin, LuAnne and Kyle; his wife Tamara, their three children and two grandchildren. Harold his father, passed away on January 12th 1998 And Laurell, his mom, passed away on December 11th 2020.

Tim grew up in Westminster and attended Skyline Vista Elementary, Scott Carpenter Junior High, and Ranum High School. He continued his education at Colorado State University where he received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology. He later attended Denver Seminary and received his Master’s in Counseling. Tim’s first job after college was delivering packages for Airborne, working under the supervision of a close family friend. He transitioned from this position to working with his dad in vocational rehab and eventually took over the company when his dad was diagnosed with ALS. Tim was always very grateful for this special time of bonding and learning from his dad. He diligently managed his own business in vocational rehab for 15 years, working with disabled veterans before changes in the industry led him to close the business. Tim’s next and final place of employment was with CenturyLink, now Lumen.

While Tim valued his education and work, his heart ultimately was always primarily about relationships -Jesus Christ being central to them all. Tim’s relationship and journey with Jesus began in childhood and continued right into eternity. The strong foundation established for this relationship is one that he frequently spoke of with gratitude. Both of Tim’s grandfather’s were pastors, his dad was in the church choir, his mom was the pianist, both of them taught Sunday School, Boys Brigade/Pioneer Girls. Northwest Baptist, the church Tim’s family attended was within walking distance of their home so as you can imagine, lots of Tim’s childhood was spent at church! While this undoubtably impacted his faith, more importantly Tim learned through daily life – the blessings as well as the hardships – what it means to trust the God he was beginning to know.

His childhood was one filled with many adventures, fun and mischief – like great family vacations, church potlucks, summers spend camping with family friends, fried chicken lunches at his grandpa and grandma’s house in Lafayette, taco night with the Vermeer side (naturally made with canned chilli beans and ketchup), night time games of hide-and-go-seek with his siblings and friends and the more devious thrill of throwing plums at passing cars from the plum tree in the front yard. I’m not sure what what was more fun for him - throwing the plums or the anticipation of having to frantically scatter to run from the occasional angry driver that would hunt them down!

Tim was a very competitive athlete and loved watching sports, as well as playing them. He played basketball and soccer throughout high school. He also played the trombone in the school band. Tim would tell you his childhood was rich with many diverse relationships and activities, but a couple traumatic events that Tim and his family experienced revealed how fragile life can be that we are ultimately not in control. One involved a house fire that Tim and his youngest brother miraculously escaped, and the other was a time when Tim’s dad was forced to crash their car into the side of the mountain because the brakes failed going over a mountain pass. The whole family was asleep with no seatbelts on (which was completely normal back then). Again, miraculously, no one was hurt.

Tim saw from a young age that God’s goodness can always be found in the midst of the questions, doubts, disappointments and fears. He chose to live a surrendered life to the God he came to love and lived his life in pursuit of following after Him. A big part of this journey came through leading his own family.

Tim met his wife Tamara for the first time at a high school summer church camp and then ‘by chance’ met again their freshman year at CSU as they were passing each other in the Chemistry building. They were married right after graduating from college on August 15th 1987. This August they would have been married for 36 years.

Tim loved Tamara – she was his soulmate, his best friend and he loved her deeply. She was the only woman he ever loved. He brought her volumes of flowers over the years, took her on many trips to Mexico, and was lavish with his gifts but his deepest love was his depth of commitment to her, unrelenting pursuit of her and how deeply he knew her and the lengths he would go to protect her. Here’s what Tim wrote in a card to Tamara

“I want how I live my life to be my love letter to you. I want to write ‘I love you’ on what I do every day – small things and big. You make me want to be the best man I can be! You deserve the absolute best. I love you with all my heart.”

Throughout their lives Tamara said he knew her better than she knew herself and he told her, literally everyday…. without fail, how much he loved her and WHAT he loved about her, which he would also often remind the kids what an amazing mom they have. He told her constantly how talented and gifted she was and how he wasn’t worthy of her.

Tim and Tamara were blessed with 3 children, Landon, Cassidy and Sophie, daughter-in-law Courtney and son-in-law Shawn, and two grandchildren, Kyden and Jaxtyn. He had Kyden and Jaxton’s names tattooed on his foreman and was expecting to fill both arms with grandchildren – no pressure kids.

Every birthday since the girls turned 5, he has given them one rose for every year of life, which as you can imagine added up when they turned 27 and 29. He took them on dates their whole lives and told them he loved them every single day– they never questioned or doubted his love for them. And everyone knows the passion for basketball that Tim and Landon shared. Tim and Tamara didn’t miss a single home game of Landon’s at Colorado Mesa University …. for five years (that’s a lot of miles over the mountains and back) and Tim and Tamara followed Landon all over the country to see his games.

Tim’s family has always been incredibly close – as the kids become adults, almost every Friday during the summer they would meet for happy hour. The kids could have chosen to go with friends, but they chose to be with their parents - now that’s saying something! They started a tradition every Halloween to host a ‘Murder Mystery’ dinner and they went all out with costumes, transforming the house, and fully embracing their ‘characters’ – as you’ll see in the slide show. And some of the best family memories are all the camping trips they took every summer. A running joke with the kids is that when they were little he called them, ‘little donkeys’ –they came to the realization when they were older that he was actually calling them little ‘jack asses’ this whole time.

Tim created such solidarity into the foundation of his family and always emphasized to each one, ‘You are worthy, you are good, you are valuable and beautiful – not because of anything you do but because of you who are and that’s why I love you and that’s why God loves you.” Tim made it clear to the kids growing up that any successes came second to integrity and character… to loving people, remaining humble and loving the Lord. He was always incredibly proud of each of them but he was the proudest when they showed great kindness and made difficult decisions that were the ‘right’ thing to do, not the easiest thing to do …. and he always pointed them back to Christ and to place all hope and trust in the one who NEVER changes. He always sought to step into the shoes of another and to seek to understand them. He always said “There’s a reason people are hurtful, rude and angry. Hurt people, hurt people. Stop and seek compassion and seek to understand.” He would send encouraging texts, verses, words of hope and love, almost daily in a family chat to all of us.

Throughout his life he married 6 couples and officiated 3 funeral services – one of them being a very high-profile service for a special family friend who was a Denver Firefighter. He taught many marriage classes, taught adult Sunday School classes and mentored more people, than we could count – officially and unofficially. The kid’s friends and team mates were very drawn to Tim because he truly cared about them and sought them out just to encourage them.

Tim went on mission trips to China and to South Africa. The trip to South Africa he went with his mom and Landon when he was 14, and they volunteered at orphanages and went on a couple epic safaris.

Tim was bigger than life and yet he would say he was an introvert – he impacted people that altered their lives but it was so subtle that people couldn’t wrap their minds and hearts around it fully BUT …. They just knew they wanted to be around him and looked forward to seeing him. Whatever situation he was in or group of people, he could adapt and connect to anyone in the room. He sought to understand people – truly understand them, and saw deeply into their hearts and hurts. He didn’t have to try… or work at this – it was a natural as breathing for him.

The hundreds of messages that have been sent from people who Tim impacted, the constant flow of gifts small and large, and all the meals are a testament to a life of intentionally loving people that Tim lived out. He quietly loved people as he moved throughout each day, each week, with a word or a smile and over the years he even befriended the people at the neighborhood Safeway and when they heard about his diagnosis they personally delivered flowers to the house, a card signed by them all with cash they had all collected. Even the president of Colorado Mesa University sent a care package because he knew Landon fand our family as all three kids attended CMU.

Throughout Tim’s diagnosis and as it progressed, he had such an amazing sense of peace that this was the journey that God has him on and he was very accepting of it. He said more than once, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it… It is what it is. We just have to live one day at a time.”

He kept his sense of humor the entire time and we laughed a lot. As his words got more jumbled we still had to laugh. He told Cass once, “Put me in your pocket”, in the car he said “How do we get to the northern lights”, one time he said “Roll me over on my pinkie”, he called the wheelchair the ‘cha cha chair’. In those moments we wanted to cry but we had to laugh. This disease was an unrelenting thief that kept stealing more and more of Tim from us – like a photo that continues to blur around the edges. But there’s one thing that this disease couldn’t touch: Tim’s faith, his eternal destiny and that we will see him again.

Our family all take great comfort in knowing Tim and his words of wisdom and deep love have been firmly planted in each one of us and we will buoy each other in the upcoming days and months and years when the grief of our dad, husband, friend and brother… not being with us…. rises up to drown us. We have a hope and a future because of God’s grace and mercy. Until we meet again…

Hebrews 13:14

For this world is not our home, we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven.