Speaking of the way she and her husband handled his late-life illness, a woman named Olivia said: “That’s what made it doable and sometimes even light – – we’ve chosen to do it together.”
This is only one of many statements made in a strikingly beautiful video called “Hob’s Odyssey” that traces the life of Harrison Hoblitzelle who died on Thanksgiving Day, a year ago. As we celebrate this Thanksgiving, I thank God for the gift of my friend Hob who gave so much inspiration to those who knew him.
The video portrays a man who changed radically when still a young adult. Even his physical appearance underwent a transformation as he discovered different human values. From having been debonair and dashing, he became deep and spiritual.
And yet he was not solemn, by any means. He retained a love for word play and other joking and also often showed what his sister-in-law calls “the mildly acerbic side of his nature.” But, in time, that latter changed, too. Olivia speaks of the “hard edges which softened with his age.”
His was a life “full of surprises and turns of fortune,” as a friend observed. When he discovered the spirituality of the East and learned how to combine it with the psychology of the West, his soul rejoiced. He became a teacher, not in a conventional mode, but, as another friend said of him then, he communicates “not just with his mind but his heart.”
A decisive turning point came in 1982 when Hob and his wife first visited India. At that time he was suffering from the aftereffects of an illness that had made it impossible for him to walk. But he met a woman with healing powers who commanded him to stand up and walk, and he did. Of this event, his wife says: “It just blew all his circuits. I saw him the victim of a miracle.”
In India he came under the influence of Father Bede Griffiths, an English Benedictine who combined being a Catholic priest and a Hindu holy man. He lived in an ashram where Hob and Olivia stayed and began a close friendship with Father Bede.
Other spiritual leaders helped shape Hob’s inner life. The Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Han, Jean Vanier, and Father Henri Nouwen – – all worked important influences on him. From the Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Han he was to receive ordination as a senior spiritual teacher, a part of his odyssey that meant much to him.
Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest whose writings have influenced so many, touched Hob with his spiritual insight. One of the priest’s sayings was to apply to Hob in his illness: “A heart full of compassion can only come from a heart that is broken.”
The illness to which his wife Olivia referred was Alzheimer’s disease, which marked Hob’s last years. With her support, Hob accepted his losses with remarkable grace. Once when he was struggling to respond to a question from me, he turned to Olivia and said with a smile: “She is my memory.”
The first thing that Hob did after hearing the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s was to teach a course on meditation for his fellow sufferers. At the time, his wife Olivia was asked how he was coping. “It’s very hard,” she answered, “but, given his nature, I think we are doing very well.” For himself, Hob said: “Dying is not the hard part, it’s just imagining what it would be like if I lost Olivia.”
In the video Olivia says of Hob things one rarely hears a wife say of her spouse. Among her observations spoken on the video are the following: “He had a beautiful soul.” “It’s been a very beautiful life, the way I see it.”
And his dear friend Emerson Stamps anticipates what life in the next world will be like for Hob. “He will be a great person in that realm too when he steps beyond this little vale,” says this beloved companion.
The video “Hob’s Odyssey” ends with a song by Leonard Cohen whose refrain goes: “Dance me to the end of love.” But the song does not hit it off perfectly because, of the love centered in Hob and Olivia and radiating out to their family and friends, there is no foreseeable end.
Richard Griffin