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EmperorofIceCream
Join Date 09/2004
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On the Death of a Father

Goodbye, Travellin' Hobbs

August 15, 2006 7:22:09 PM from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
Sabrina's Dad, Travellin' Hobbs, Bill, William, has started his last journey. He has emphysema, and it's going to kill him. Not yet awhile, and only after after 71 years of life. A good innings, as the English say (the period of time one team spends at bat during a cricket match, the length of time - entirely variable - that it takes to get every player for that team 'out').

Ever since I arrived in America Hobbs has been a father to me, in every way that he could. I feel I am more his son than ever I was the son of my biological father, a man I barely knew. To this day, I have no idea whether my 'real' father is alive or dead - and very little interest in finding out.

I arrived in America a complete stranger to Hobbs and his wife, whom I call Mrs. Ethel. The man I've come to know over these past three years is in every way the antithesis of the man who was (I presume him to be dead) my biological parent: a faithful and loving husband, a constant provider; a man determined to do the right thing at every turn - and to bear the costs and consequences when he got it wrong, as we all do. A man determined to act as if the world and those in it are as trustworthy and honest as he is; very often to his own cost, because in that presumption he has always been wrong. I still can't decide if his trust in the world and other people, his willingness to presume the best in others in the face of almost constant disappointment, is a strength born of will and character, or a weakness born of a refusal to face the fact that the world is in fact full of deceit.

In charity and love (Hobbs is an eminently lovable, often exasperating man) I have chosen to believe the former and not the latter.

Hobbs was born in a coal camp in Kentucky. When he was seventeen he married his high school sweetheart. And the first thing he did, after his marriage, was to hitch-hike from Hazard County, Kentucky, to St. Louis, Missouri, looking for work. From where he then lived in Kentucky that's a distance of close to eight hundred miles. He later moved Mrs. Ethel to Owensboro, Kentucky, cutting about three hundred miles from the journey. A journey he made every weekend, to be with his wife. He found work with McDonald Douglas - and in the thirty years he was employed by that company he missed two days of work - the day he buried his first child, and the day he buried his father, twenty years later.

He rose high in that company and took his family across America and to Europe in the pursuit of his work. He raised another son, and a daughter, Sabrina, now my wife. He has two grand-children, both of whom have used him abominably, exploiting his good nature (or his refusal to see selfishness and deceit for what it is) at every turn. His second son died several years ago; his daughter's life has been (and still is) radically unconventional and very hard for him to understand; but at every turn and whenever she's needed him, he's been there for her.

Hobbs is no saint. He has certain peculiarities of character that can, and do, occasionally make him inordinately difficult to live with. On any journey, for instance, Hobbs has to drive - and he has to drive from the moment the journey begins until the moment the destination is reached. And once the journey's begun nothing can be allowed to halt it - apart from rest stops for relief and refreshment. He can drive (and has driven) through hurricanes and blinding snowstorms; through mountains at ludicrous speeds while the windshield is opaque with rain - a habit that led to the most harrowing journey of my life, through the tail-end of Hurricane Ivan, from Ohio to Virginia, when I came here to start work for Dominion. A journey I recorded here (Link).

As I write this I find myself grasping at what I want to say: this isn't a biography, it's a goodbye. Goodbye to a man who, from the moment I met him, has done more for me than any other man alive; who was willing to take on faith his daughter's assessment of me (in the past she hasn't proved to be the most reliable, or even rational, judge of character); who was willing to put his money where his daughter's mouth was and finance not only my (ongoing) pursuit of legal residency and citizenship (to the tune of close to ten thousand dollars) but also the purchase of the car that made it possible for me to travel to Virginia in the first place and then get to and from work everyday; a man who has stood by us both at every turn; a man who made it possible for me to learn something I couldn't have come to know otherwise - what a good father is.

He taught me to drive American - and didn't flinch the first few times he took me on the road. Sabrina tried - but was hampered by the fact that she had to keep her eyes closed in terror... Learning to drive on the wrong side of the road while sat on the wrong side of the car was one of the more difficult things I've had to do since arriving here.

Hobbs taught me what it is to be a good American man; he taught me the meaning of patriotism - something Europeans have forgotten, or mention only to laugh at cynically; he taught me the meaning and value of a family complete and whole, in all its love and anguish - something I didn't learn in the previous 43 years I'd spent in England - something I shall cherish till the day of my own death.

And in his weakness and fallibility he's taught me the limits of a faith I no longer share; at least, no longer share in the way that he imagines I share it. Hobbs is mortally afraid of death, despite his belief in the Christian revelation. Why, I'm not sure - not that it matters. I hope to be at his bedside when finally walks out through the gates of this world and into whatever it is that awaits him.

And if I am I shall hold his hand and tell him this:

You lived the best life you could, Hobbs. You did what you thought was the best thing because you thought it was the best thing, and you never turned away from those who needed you, no matter how they abused the gifts you gave them. You did alright, Hobbs, and better than many. And when you finally leave this world behind, when you walk through that last door and leave sickness and pain, fear and disappointment, and all the travail of this world behind you, you'll find your sons waiting for you, and Jesus with them, come to take you home. And all those things you fear will be held against you, they'll be lost and gone, drowned in the Blood and the Sacrifice of one who knows you better, and loves you better, than I ever will or could.

Don't be afraid, Hobbs. What's to come is better than what went before.

Good night, Hobbs, my friend and father.

Good night.

"
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EmperorofIceCream
EmperorofIceCream
Join Date 09/2004
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Reply #1 August 15, 2006 7:22:53 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
. appearance dot
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EmperorofIceCream
Tova7
Join Date 09/2005
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Reply #2 August 15, 2006 7:44:56 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

Simon,

What a moving and very loving tribute to Sabrina's dad.

I am speechless.

Thank you so much for sharing it.

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EmperorofIceCream
dharmagrl
Join Date 02/2004
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Reply #3 August 15, 2006 8:18:39 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

I'm sitting here with tears trickling down my face.  Thank you for sharing this, it's wonderful.

What you said to Hobbs is exactly what I said to my dad the day his mortal remians were reduced to ashes.  I know that his soul, his essence, the thing that made him irreplaceably HIM had long departed, but it still hurt to have to acknowledge that he really was gone.

It hurt then, it hurts now, and I have a feeling that it will probably hurt for quite some time to come - perhaps even forever. 

Tell Sabrina that I'm here for her if she needs me, and know that I'm here for you too...even if I'm just a shoulder to cry on and an ear to bend.

Make the most of your time with him whilst you can, and make sure that he knows you both love him.

I wish there was more I could do.

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EmperorofIceCream
EmperorofIceCream
Join Date 09/2004
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Reply #4 August 15, 2006 11:27:47 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
To: Tova & Dharma

Thank you. He ain't dead yet, and might surprise us all for awhile more. But we got the news of his emphysema today, and it proved necessary for me to write what I have.

I try to say 'good bye' in advance: that way, it hurts a little less when the day actually arrives when the words have to be said in earnest.
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EmperorofIceCream
foreverserenity
Join Date 06/2004
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Reply #5 August 16, 2006 12:23:27 AM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
This is a wonderful tribute Simon, very moving.
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