Playing Fair and Being Kind

“Rick, let’s keep this thing simple.”

Paraphrasing what Doctor Bob said to Bill Wilson, regarding how to use Alcoholics Anonymous, as he lay dying. Before he breathed his last his final words to Bill were, “Bill, let’s keep this thing simple.” Wise words and that is what I am doing right now. There is no way I can honor how my life changed and how it thrived as a result of inter-sectioning with the life of Rick Mobbs. He was an accident about to happen at all times. I would watch him and wonder how he stayed on the face of the earth.

Rick was energized and agitated and on edge the whole time I knew him in our youth. By youth I mean his. I was over forty years old when we first met. He was a twenty-something. I could never conceive of a way to capture the energy Rick displayed. He was steady, attentive, distracted, prepared to take flight, all things at any one time. I loved him almost instantly. He was shy, aggressive, thoughtful, self absorbed. What was his charm? What was it that captured the heart and made one stick with him through it all? He was a pal, a little brother, a girlfriend, a source or wisdom, a source of frustrating uncertainty. His value to those who needed a friend was immeasurable. Rick took everything that existed in the immediate vicinity and wove it all into a tapestry that was more beautiful and gratifying than before.

That’s what it was. I know precisely what it was that drew me to him. Rick was a spitting image of my insides. Rick displayed all the things I was feeling but could not identify nor express. He wore my insides on the outside. He was fearless, courageous, afraid, and nervous beyond belief. The discomfort I would feel around him was the knowledge that he could outdo all the things I knew about. Rick made me examine my intentions, my agenda, my purpose. I could not be counterfeit in his presence. He could see what I was and what I wasn’t in an instant. And that is what made him so peaceful with others. He had suffered all that they were going through at the moment and he could sit with the afflicted and oppressed and help them to understand what it was they had to do.

Rick had no answers except he was able to pull the answers from you. That is what I liked about being his friend and what I found in him when we met as old men. He had refined it all and he had become all those things we both dreamed of becoming. Simple as that.

Rick moved on yesterday morning. Good bye, Rick.

G. M. Goodwin

6 October 2016

Below is a photo of Rick and underneath is a piece I wrote on the first of October. If you have access to music by Bill Evans play it while reading. It fits.

WE’RE LOSING ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS

One of the good guys on this earth is departing shortly. Being a small part of his life has been huge. One of those situations where someone comes into being, into your sphere of influence for a reason, a season, a lifetime. For one, two, or for all reasons. One of the uncertainties that face us regularly. Not to linger on, to enjoy.

I fully enjoyed my friend. I only knew him for a brief period in the eighties, a few years in our early sobriety. And then again later, much later, like just a few years ago up until last week. We reconnected after many, many years. We are both proud and happy of what has transpired. Over thirty years of absence from each other. I wonder how much prana we exchanged back then in the early eighties. Right now, by the emotions going through my core, what is surging and ebbing in my innards, I truly believe that he and I exchanged the maximum allowed.

We met on a subway platform in Dorchester, just a short way from downtown Boston. In town is where we would meet from then on. I lived on the seedy north slope of Beacon Hill. The shady side of where the elite rest their greedy heads. My friend and I would bump into each other and go for walks or coffee and share life stories and needs, desires, whatever was alive in the moment. His angst was totally right out there. He could go from slight comfort to full agony in the time you could blink. That is what was so endearing about him; he was an open guide to the universe. I fell in love with him and I believe he had a great deal of respect for me.

I was lucky to have landed a job, poor paying as it was, as clinical director of a forty two bed half-way house in East Boston. I kept busy improving what was considered the recovery program in that place. I inherited a program that needed a lot of attention. I was trained in the Navy where I was director of one of their most visible programs in California adjacent to their Drug Rehabilitation Center. From that experience I was more than prepared to tighten and implement a fully functional and fully structured program. Within a few months the half-way house residents and staff were involved fully with recovery and personal growth. Still I kept my eye open for ways to improve what we had.

One night in town at a meeting I found my friend in the hall and afterward I joined him for a cup of coffee around the corner. During our conversation it occurred to me that he would be a great addition to the staff in East Boston. I wondered if he was working but it seemed not. He commented that work was not a good idea for him then; it was too soon. His emotional condition was still at risk and he and his sponsor had been holding back from such an endeavor. I commented that if he wanted to just spend a few hours a day there that I felt his presence would be an asset for the residents. His manner and demeanor and good program of recovery would be an excellent example for the men. He said he would think about it but he doubted he could do it. I reluctantly let the idea go. His comfort was more important than what I had in store.

As it turned out he was able to give it a try and the result was happy and productive all around. My friend’s name is Rick Mobbs. I have never, nor do I think I will ever meet such a gentle, responsive, and trusted individual. Add to that a character that welcomed a chance to be mischievous; that is Rick. His intelligence is measured by the amount and depth at which he could cause a change in the weather, the direction of earth rotation, and the magnetic fields in our planet. Rick was a great presence; he was more than I could have dreamed of for the program at the half-way house. He has spread his love and influence all over.

Alas, it was short lived. Rick came to me one day after he’d been there for a while and confessed his inability to maintain what I expected and what he was able to comfortably supply. I argued for a little while with him but, as I said, I had seen him go from one comfort state to full bore anguish in nothing flat. I was happy that he had was able to approach me with such confidence and state his case so clearly. Of course, I was happy to give him his freedom. We were friends and stayed that way. Soon after Rick left I was also on my way out the door. I had met someone and we had plans to leave the area and I lost touch with Rick.

The last I saw of Rick he was beginning to produce art and he was involved with a lovely lady from Venezuela. He was trying to balance sobriety with production and he was doing the best he could at the time. I stayed in touch with several people from the Boston area but Rick had drifted away and I was doing a similar life change. That was around the spring of 1984.

In October of 2012 I was traveling across the country meeting new people and old friends of yore. I found Rick while I was searching for a mutual friend from the half-way house days. It was good to see that Rick had become an accomplished artist and that he was living and enjoying life in Santa Fe. Eventually, after closing the loop with our mutual friend, Rick and I got together in Albuquerque. What a terrific meeting that was. We both were much, much older but so, so recognizable. Except Rick was no longer so angst ridden. His manner was so confident and professional! He was working at things interesting and still able to continue with his art some days. Our renewed friendship was different as can be expected. No longer was Rick so vulnerable. No longer was Rick so volatile and angst ridden. He had incorporated all that could be learned at the hands of his sponsor and by his own experiences along the way.

These past few years that I’ve had with Rick have been instructive for me. He has a beautiful family consisting of an extremely lovely spouse and three terrific children. I have learned a lot from Rick in his days to now. I have seen his growth from those days in Boston to what he demonstrates on a daily basis here in Santa Fe. Rick is mature, solid, and giving of himself. Any time of day or under any circumstance I have been pleased to be in his gentle and steady presence as he looks at something I have done or written. In just a few words or with an expression and a grunt he can adjust a thought or a line of text of mine to perfection. I’ve learned to trust him with any of my efforts to be artistic because Rick is an artist. I love you, Rick. I always will. I love you and your family and I will do my very best to be helpful to them in the future.

Thank you, Rick for a beautiful and lasting friendship.

G. M. Goodwin

1 October 2016