Tehachapi News

Tehachapi man succumbs to brain cancer

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Timothy Jim Waldrum, 31, was an aspiring Jedi Knight, who had triumphed over an evil foe since he was 4 years old.

Those who witnessed Tim’s heroic, life-long battle with cancer can take some comfort from knowing that “The Force” was with him as he peacefully passed from this galaxy on June 18, 2009.

“That was the last thing I said to him as he was being taken in for surgery,” said Tim’s stepfather, City Councilman Ed Grimes. “He smiled and gave me the thumbs up.”

Tim never regained consciousness following the May 1 brain surgery, the last of nearly a dozen such procedures that he had taken in stride since he was first diagnosed with a brain tumor as a small child.

“I think he liked the freedom that a Jedi has. The control,” Ruthie Grimes said of the son whose first introduction to The Force was in vitro. “He didn’t have a whole lot of control over what happened to him.”

At least 16 other children were diagnosed with cancer during that same time period, in what the later became known as the McFarland cancer cluster. Extensive environmental health studies conducted over the next decade were unable to confirm the cause of the quadrupled rate of cancer in McFarland’s youth. Pesticide use in the rural farming community was suspected.

Although years of invasive treatments took a toll on Tim‘s health, he refused to think of himself as handicapped. Instead, he worked hard to overcome physical challenges, and took well-earned pride in graduating from McFarland High School in 1996.

In 2002, he earned an associate’s degree from Bakersfield College. He also excelled in culinary school, and was known as “the king of desserts” at all Grimes family gatherings. Tim’s signature Oreole cheesecake could not be outdone.

For the past several years, Tim worked for Goodwill Industries in Bakersfield as a human resources clerk.

He was truly a “people person” who made even new acquaintances feel like family, his stepfather said.

“He was a person who never let anything stand in his way,” Ed Grimes said. “He was not afraid of anything. If he’d have been six-foot-five and 250 pounds, he would have been in the NFL.”

Known as Tehachapi’s former “quality of life mayor,” Grimes credits Tim’s unwavering spirit with  inspiring his own positive outlook and determination to live life to its fullest -- each and every day.

“When I see the challenges he had to overcome, I’m inspired because a lot of people just give up,” Grimes said. “He never did that. It made him fight even harder.”

While Tim’s siblings are known in the community as a family of dedicated educators, it was the physically challenged brother who effortlessly taught the the most valuable life lessons.

“One redeeming quality that he had was to make people really think twice about themselves and find out how good they could be...if they would just persevere,” Grimes said.

See Tim Waldrum’s obituary on page B3.

Posted June 22, 2009; Volume 110 - No.11, print edition June 24, 2009.