Judge remembered
By Steve Herring
Published in News on July 4, 2015 10:58 PM
Full SizeTim Finan's life was celebrated Friday morning as he had lived it -- with humor and laughter.
But even with the laughter, tears still fell and the shock over his sudden passing lingered.
The gregarious and affable Finan, 62, a District Court judge, died of a heart attack at his home this past Tuesday morning.
He was remembered during the Friday morning funeral service at a packed St. Paul United Methodist Church for his humor and his concern for others, especially the youth sports teams that he coached.
Finan was a N.C. State University Wolfpack fan and speakers noted that he would have been happy to see all of the red being worn, especially by Carolina and Duke fans.
His sister, Jeanne Finan, said she wore red socks for him.
The receiving line stretched from the sanctuary through the fellowship hall well before the family was to begin receiving family and friends at 9:30 a.m. and lasted almost to the 11 a.m. service.
Chairs and a video and audio feed had been set up in the fellowship hall to handle the overflow crowd.
Jeanne Finan, Finan's son, Patrick, and his longtime friend and law school colleague, John Walston, shared stories about Finan that had the audience laughing.
That, they said, is what Finan -- who was known for his humorous stories and love of people -- would want.
"Just being around him, you felt better about yourself," Patrick Finan said. "He just had such a strong moral compass."
Finan said he only had two goals to accomplish, which were to "hold it together" and not to speak too long.
"But I am my father's son," he said.
He said his father greatly enjoyed the "Lord of the Rings" books and had read them to his young sons. They enjoyed the movies based on the books, too.
He recalled one scene in which the Hobbit Pippin is talking to the wizard Gandalf just before a battle.
"He looks at Gandalf and says, 'I didn't know it would end this way,'" Patrick said.
Gandalf responds that "it doesn't end here" and that death is just another path, one that everyone must face, Patrick said.
"He was our rock," Finan said. "I don't know what we will do, but we will do it together."
Finan said he has an obsession about Bojangles food, but that there are none in Los Angeles where he lives.
When he would fly home, his father would greet him every time with Bojangles.
"Every restaurant that we went out to, the first thing he would say to the waitress is, 'This young man has come 3,000 miles for sweet tea,'" he said. "'The most important things is to keep both eyes on the glass at all times.'"
He recalled how much he, his brother, Matt, and their father enjoyed watching sports together, including N.C. State Wolfpack football.
Finan said he will miss that.
"It was more fun (watching) losing (games) with my dad than it would have been winning with you (Carolina or Duke)," he said.
Finan said he had spoken with his father by phone just two days before he died.
He said he usually asked his father about what had happened in court.
"The last time I asked him this, 'Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute,'" Finan said. "I heard his feet down the hall, and I heard him sit down at the computer. He was going down his list of stories.
"'Ever tell you the one about the time they took me to see a client and they locked me in jail and left me there? How about the time the couple wanted an annulment, but they really loved each other and kept talking about they had made it work for 19 days and just kept 'constipating' their relationship.'"
Finan said he never tired of his father's stories even though he had heard some of them a thousand times.
Jeanne Finan said she and her sister, Polly Finan Laubinger, thought their younger brother was "incredibly wonderful" from the start.
"What a beautiful cloud of witnesses you all are this morning," she said. 'I bet my brother Tim would love to be standing right here because -- what an audience. And I would not do my brother justice if I did not tell you a story because you all know he loved to tell a story, especially a funny story.
"And he could make almost any story funny. I have always liked it that he always laughed the hardest of anyone at his own stories."
Mrs. Finan said that Finan and his wife, Dianne, visited her and her husband in Vermont last summer. For some reason people in Vermont build sculptures out of hay bales, she said.
One near her home looks like a huge dog, she said.
As they were driving past it, Finan told them to stop because he wanted his photo taken with it.
He was wearing an N.C. State shirt and hat.
"I said, 'I don't get it, why do you want your picture in front of this big dog?'" she said. "'Dog? It's not a dog. That's a wolf.'"
Walston jokingly said he had wondered how he could sum up 34 years of friendship and love in "just 45 minutes."
Finan loved a "top 10 list," he said.
Walston said he had considered a top 10 list of how Finan had served his country, his community, his friends and his family.
But everybody already knows that, he said.
"And I thought about a lot about how I loved him," he said. "Couldn't narrow it to 10."
Instead Walston said he compiled a top 10 list of how his friend got on his nerves -- from being too bright and cheerful at their early morning workout sessions at the YMCA to being a friend to everybody -- all that were actually Finan's strengths.
"And the No. 1 thing, he broke my heart by leaving us too soon," he said. "I will miss Tim every day for the rest of my life."