For 10 weeks after her husband was senselessly murdered, Sharlene Bosma had to keep making truck payments. While she waited more than a month for his official death certificate, she had to keep up the payments on Tim Bosma’s 2007 Dodge Ram pickup. The same truck he left in on May 6, accompanied by two strangers who came by their Ancaster home for a test drive after he’d posted the truck for sale online. The same truck, police allege, those two men stole, before or after they killed Tim and burned his body beyond recognition. Video English FlashEnglish Flash Charity relay swim across Lake Ontario cut shortCharity relay swim across Lake Ontario cut short Now, on the eve of the second court appearance of both accused, Sharlene says she doesn’t want any other families in her situation to have to worry about things like truck payments. She has started a fund, Tim’s Tribute, to provide financial assistance and support to the families of innocent victims of homicide, both in the immediate aftermath of such tragedies as well as during the trial. To help with things like mortgage payments. Or getting groceries, or paying for a headstone and burial. Or to cover gas money or lost wages during court appearances. “These are things people shouldn’t have to think about,” she says. “I understand the feeling of thinking you have all the time in the world, and then you don’t.” In her case, she says, she was lucky. The entire country mourned Tim, and she has a plastic bin full of cards and messages of condolences to prove it. She can’t even close the lid properly. A complete stranger even sent a painting of Tim and their daughter, which now hangs in her kitchen. “My faith in humanity was restored by the goodness of strangers,” she says. The first donation to Tim’s Tribute is from Sharlene herself, from the fund set up for her and her daughter. “Maybe it will be a way for us to step past what happened,” she says of the venture. “I already do (revisit that day), every day. This is my life. It’s not going to change. My life, what it was, I’m never getting that back, but maybe this will help keep Tim with us . . . to separate his memory from . . . ,” she trails off. She means from Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, the two men accused of the first-degree murder of her husband. They appeared in Hamilton court Thursday. “There has to be something good,” she says. “And since I can’t see it, I’ll make it.” Sharlene hopes the fund, set up in partnership with Christian Stewardship Services, will eventually become a registered charity. But she has learned there are a lot of steps to making that happen. “I’m learning as I go,” she says. For now, she will focus assistance and support on families in the Hamilton area, hoping to eventually expand as the charity grows. But it gives her a purpose. Her other purpose, as always, is her daughter. “When I’m with my daughter I’m not the widow of Tim. I’m just Mommy,” she says. But life is still far from normal. She still can’t take the toddler out in public. “Somebody else took her to the park today because I can’t,” she says. “Doing this, starting this is the first thing in three months that has given me hope,” she says. “It’s the first time I think maybe some good will come of this.” Read more about: Tim Bosma
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 02:14:16 +0000
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