It’s been more than 20 years since Sheila Henson lost her husband Timothy, but she still gets a huge smile on her face when she talks about him.
It’s not surprising seeing as they were clearly meant to be from the time they were children.
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“His sister and I were friends in school when we were in fourth grade,” said Henson.
Henson said Tim was three and a half years older; but it was more than just a childhood crush on an ‘older man’.
“Actually, he was my first boyfriend when I was like, 12,” said Henson.
The couple went to prom together, and Henson said it was off and on through high school.
“Then I married somebody else and was married for six years,” said Henson.
Tim joined the Marines, spending time at Camp Lejeune before becoming a reservist.
But their love story wasn’t over.
“We got back together after my divorce,” she said.
Now in their 20s, Henson had two girls from her first marriage, and she and Tim had two more together. They built a happy life as a family, both working at a cotton mill in South Carolina.
But Tim’s pride and joy were all his girls.
“He was a family man. Yeah, definitely. He loved his kids,” said Henson. “All four of them were his kids. He raised all of them, he was always there for them. We had four girls, so he was a good sport. He used to sit and let him do his hair and put makeup on him and just whatever they wanted to do, he let him do it. He could be stern at times when he needed to be, but the girls were just his life.”
Tim also loved to fish, something Henson remembers fondly as she thinks now of her grandson.
“His favorite was fishing. He loved to fish. And we laugh now because his biological grandson, the oldest one, he is on the fishing team in Georgia at his school and that’s all he thinks about is fishing. Him not even getting to know him, and it was kind of passed down,” said Henson. “I can see him every day in the grandchildren. Especially his eldest grandson, he is so much like him, I tell him all the time. It’s like Deja vu when I look at him.”
Now Henson only has her children, grandchildren, photos, and memories to look at to remember Tim, because he’s been gone since October 2002.
“When he first got sick, he started out talking about his hand going to sleep, he said his hand was tingling. And I’d say, ‘Well, maybe you need to go have it checked out.’ And ‘Nah, it’s okay, it’ll be alright,’” said Henson.
That was at the end of April 2001. They figured it was something easily explained, maybe carpal tunnel. They certainly were not expecting the diagnosis they got.
“I called and he had his first appointment,” said Henson. That was the day after Mother’s Day.
“Before he got the neurologist appointment, he started having a whole lot of signs. He had double vision. His gait wasn’t good. Just things just progressively went downhill,” said Henson. “On June the first I had scheduled him for some scans and stuff and that’s when I found that he had two brain tumors and later discovered that it had come from a small spot on his lung. It was lung cancer that had metastasized to the brain.”
At the time, Henson had just lost her job at the cotton mill, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
“I was able to take care of him, so when he went to the hospital, I went to the hospital,” said Henson. “By that point he couldn’t walk, he’d just cry. He couldn’t understand what we were saying to him. It was tough.”
One of Tim’s tumors was on the brainstem, so all they could do at the time was a particular kind of radiation. They were able to remove the tumor from the frontal lobe. Henson said it was a battle for a few months, and then for about six months, Tim was a little better for a while before he lost his final battle.
“He was diagnosed on June the first of 2001 and passed away on October the 17th of 2002,” said Henson.
Tim was only 42 years old.
But it wasn’t until years later Henson realized the tragic loss of her young husband was likely related to his time served at Camp Lejeune.
“It wasn’t until maybe three or four years ago that I really heard about it and then I kind of checked a little bit,” said Henson. “And you know, looking back now I can see a lot of other signs that I’ve heard people talk about. His teeth were bad. He had these unexplained rashes that they thought were sun poisoning, but I can see now that it was probably related.”
But because Tim was a reservist, when they tried to apply for benefits when he got sick, the VA said he didn’t qualify.
That’s why having met Michelle James and being a part of her Camp Lejeune Toxic Water Widows Facebook group has been so helpful for Henson.
“It has been a lot of hell,” said Henson. “Michelle and a lot of the other ladies have stepped in and helped with stuff and kind of guide you along the way. You know, where to go or kind of what to look for and if they don’t have the answer, they will try to find somebody who does.”
Henson is hoping now, with her lawsuit claim filed, she’ll hopefully get some good news, and be awarded for the untimely loss of her husband.
Still, all these years later, knowing what she knows now, Henson doesn’t think Tim would have done anything differently if he’d known about the water.
“He was proud to be a Marine. He would have done it all over again,” said Henson. “We lost a great man to a senseless act of our government. What they took away, my children’s dad, the grandchildren never got to meet him, you know. But there’s still hope and life… love each other and live life to the fullest. You never know how much time you have with the people you love, so don’t let the petty stuff get in the way of happiness.”