Tag Archives: love

Last Thoughts

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The Last Picture, November 2023, Godfrey, Il

By Ryan Hilligoss. November 13, 2025

It’s been two years to the day. But does it matter if we remember the actual dates those we love who have passed on? Maybe, maybe not. To each their own and whatever helps you cope with the grief as you go through the process. I think of my dad everyday, usually several times a day. Sometimes for no reason and sometimes because a memory comes to me or a conversation we had or a trip we took. Sometimes I hear his voice in my head and sometimes I slip into my Bob impression which is fairly easy to do because he was so distinctive in the sound of his voice, his mannerisms, his personality, or his Bobisms some of us know by heart. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that we remember a date, maybe it just helps us mark the miles as time rolls down the highway.

We truly never know when it’s our time. A friend once told me of her parents driving in a car, her mom driving and father riding in the passenger seat. He was talking about a trip they were planning and was talking quickly and excitedly. She turned a corner, the talking had stopped in mid sentence, the mom looked over and her husband had simply, quickly passed away from a major heart attack as they talked. The silence was deafening. In my dad’s case, he passed away late at night, early morning on a quiet November night, two months shy of his 82nd birthday. For his age, or most ages for that matter, Bob Hilligoss was a very active man, dancing every weekend, visiting friends, his “dancing partner”, and family everyday, and generally, enjoying the hell out of life.

During his last weekend he lived it up to the fullest with dancing at the Alton VFW on Friday night and the Grafton Winery on Saturday afternoon. He and I talked Sunday morning about his weekly adventures. He visited Donna Sunday afternoon and gave her a kiss on his way out the door which he rarely did in public. His life long friend Tim from Humboldt was in town and they hung out and watched a football game. Tim was headed to Charleston that night but told dad he’d be back Monday afternoon. “I’ll be here,” Dad said as they waved at each other. Little did he know. Next door neighbor Jackson came over about 8:00pm to say their usual heys and goodnights to each other. By all accounts he had a great weekend, was full of life and enjoyed everyone’s company. He went to bed around 9:00pm as usual but woke up around 1:00am not feeling well. He had been complaining of heartburn for a few weeks and propped himself up on his bed pillows at night. He made his way down to the couch and called our neighbor Scott to say something wasn’t right and needed help. Scott called 911 and they arrived within minutes. They worked on him for close to 30 minutes but there was nothing they could do. He’d suffered a heart attack, maybe even a ruptured artery. He was fully cognizant as they worked on him and followed their orders to move this way and that as they moved him from the couch to the floor. Scott was there in the room as the paramedics tried their best, Scott and dad maintained eye contact. He was fully aware of what was happening. His last words to Scott were, “I don’t think I am going to make it.”

Whether you believe in the concept of energy and the spirit or not, some odd things happened that evening around that time. Scott told me their dogs were uncharacteristically howling at something outside that evening. When Scott went to investigate he stepped outside and heard a barn owl hooting in the woods behind our house. My dad was fascinated with and a lifelong student of Native Americans and in some native cultures, the owl carries a heavy weight of spiritualism and an omen of death. In Indiana, my cousin, dad’s niece, woke up from sleep sensing something was wrong somewhere, somehow. On the other side of a town, a young teenage girl who had spent a lot of time with dad woke up from her sleep with the same feeling. Meanwhile 300 miles away, I lay tossing and turning sleeping fitfully when I heard my phone buzz on vibrate. It was Donna, “Dad’s gone baby.” Three simple words. Dad’s gone.

I am two years into my grief process. I’ve gone through most of the stages at least once, some of them several times, in no specific order. The grief never goes away. It changes and ebbs and flows like a river, but it never goes away. The further along we go, it comes at odd, random moments. Recently when actor and activist Robert Redford passed away, my first knee jerk reaction was to call my mom and dad to tell them and talk to them since they both loved him and his movies. It took a moment for me to realize, oh yeah, I can’t.

As much as it’s pained and drained me emotionally, mentally, and psychologically, I’ve gotten through it with the help of family, friends, my brother and aunts and uncles. But one thought has haunted me constantly: what was he thinking about in those last minutes? Other than being aware of what was happening, the medics working on him, and seeing Scott in the room, what was going through his mind? Was he in pain? Was he worried about his dog, was he worried about me and Kevin and what would happen to us? Was he thinking of our mom, Sean or his parents, was his life flashing before his eyes, moment after moment flying by at lightning speed? The fact I wasn’t there at that moment after having spent all my life being near him will haunt me for the rest of my life. I was just there with Graham the weekend prior as we had a great weekend at a dance and golfing with the family. I know it’s not reasonable and I shouldn’t, but I will. I wasn’t there to help in any way I could or to say goodbye one last time.

While I will be thinking of his last thoughts for the rest of my life, I do know that our dad lived a long, good, and decent life filled with love of all the countless people he had run across in his time. His family and friends from Humboldt, Mattoon and Charleston, his students and athletes in Divernon and Rochester, his large extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles, his former employees at the restaurant and all the other jobs he had. He never stopped working from the time he could walk until the day he left. Work was how he proved himself as a person and gave him a purpose. And when he went, we were all there in spirit, standing around him, sharing the love we carried for each other.

Maybe it’s not important to know what he was thinking. It is simply enough to know that he lived. We lived to bear witness to the person who was Robert Lee Hilligoss. And that is good enough.

For Graham and Rory

Two things I have been telling myself, and anyone else who will listen, for 10 years now after our brother Sean passed away: get your affairs in order and to not carry grudges as best as possible because you never know when it will be your last time seeing or talking to someone. So here is me taking care of some of my business. So my kids don’t have to wonder what I am thinking when it’s my time hopefully a couple, several decades, from now.

It was 2002. I was 28 years old. You two were a few years off in the horizon. I was sent to southern California for work training. I was in Thousand Oaks for 3 weeks. On a Sunday morning, I left Thousand Oaks for a day trip down to the ocean. A state highway led down the mountains into Malibu, dropping me at The Pacific Coast highway near Pepperdine University. I turned south on the PCH headed towards Venice and Santa Monica. It was a beautiful September California morning, 75 degrees, nothing but blue skies and sunshine. I wanted to get close to the ocean. I spotted a sign for a state park. I parked and walked up a small incline on a path with flowers and bushes on either side of me. As I crested the rise, the vegetation fell away and I stepped into Eden. There was the Pacific, blue as blue could be, stretching out as far as I could see. I was at a small park on a cliff, the beach 30 feet below. There was a small wooden bench facing the water. I had the place to myself. On a quiet Sunday morning in southern California, I had a magical moment all to myself with nothing but the water, sunshine and birds flying nearby. I sat on the bench and took in all the beauty I could take. In life, some of our deepest, most profound moments are small happy accidents that befall us if we are open to the experience.

When it’s time, that’s where I’ll be. Sitting on a bench on a sunny quiet morning, looking at the vastness of the ocean, thinking of time, feeling grateful for all life has given me. But this time, you’ll be with me sitting on either side enjoying the view and the sunshine on our faces, and the warmth of the sun on our shoulders. Everyone else will be there too, standing behind us their hands touching ours. Maybe I’ll tell a stupid dad joke. Maybe Woody will pop out of the bushes chasing a rabbit. Maybe we’ll see some surfers out on the water catching a perfect wave. Maybe. Just maybe……. You two are the best things I’ve ever done in life. And that’s pretty damned good. I’ll see you in my dreams.

Jim Harrison, Hard Times, In Search of Small Gods

” The other boot doesn’t drop from heaven.

I’ve made this path and nobody else

leading crookedly up through the pasture

where I’ll never reach the top of Antelope Butte.

It is where my mind begins to learn

my heart’s language on this endless

wobbly path, veering south and north

informed by my all too vivid dreams

which are a compass without a needle.

Today the gods speak in drunk talk

pulling at a heart too old for this walk,

a cold windy day kneeling at the mouth

of the snake den where they killed 800 rattlers.

Moving higher my thumping heart recites the names

of a dozen friends who have died in recent years,

names now incomprehensible as the mountains

across the river far behind me.

I’ll always be walking up Antelope Butte.

Perhaps when we die our names are taken

from us by a divine magnet and are free

to flutter here and there within the bodies

of birds. I’ll be a simple crow

who can reach the top of Antelope Butte.”

Bob One Year On: Let’s Ride

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Tonight I watched the documentary Albert Brooks: Defending My Life on HBO made by Brooks’ lifelong friend Rob Reiner. I know a lot about Brooks and many of his movies, but up until now, I didn’t know Brooks father was actor/comedian Harry Einstein who went by the name Parksykarkas. Brooks real name is Albert Einstein, talk about being born under pressure, and one of his brothers was the deceased actor/comedian Super Dave Osborne whose real name was Bob Einstein. The elder Einstein literally died on stage at a Friar’s Club performance in 1958 after delivering a 10 minute act to uproarious laughter. Albert was 11 years old when his father passed. In the documentary, Brook and Reiner go to visit Harry’s resting place at the Home of Peace mausoleum in L.A, resting next to Three Stooges own Shemp Howard. While looking at his father’s placard, Albert sighs, touches his fingers to his lips, presses his fingers to the bronze plate and says, “I miss you dad.” At the age of 77, his dad has been gone for 66 years, but the pain and sadness is visceral in the movie. I miss you dad, the loss and grief over a parent never ends no matter how much time has passed or how old you get.

Robert Lee Hilligoss, father to my brother Kevin and deceased brother Robert Sean, passed away roughly 13 months ago. It doesn’t seem like a year ago, it seems so fresh, like it happened yesterday, but simultaneously, it seems like it happened a lifetime ago. I can still hear the sound of Donna’s voice at 3:00am on a Monday morning, “Baby, dad is gone.” Four simple words that are anything but simple. Since he passed, I made a long overdue decision to see a therapist to work through some heavy baggage including the death of both my parents, a brother, a divorce and the changing nature of my role as a father as my two children have gotten older and started their process of moving on in life. I am not embarrassed to admit this and think we need to be much more public and open about seeking help when it’s needed. My therapist is an older lady, very kind and wise and helpful. Often times I think I am looking at and talking to my grandmother Letha Cook Hilligoss. She’s given me many tools to use as needed. When I feel overwhelmed or down, I can hear her voice in my head, “Ryan, tell yourself you’re Ok. Find your safe place in you head and repeat, you are OK. Breathe. Live with the pain, live with the discomfort. You’ve run away from it long enough. You can run but you can’t hide.”

During one session, she asked me if I was over my dad passing. I was silent as I processed her question. How can I possibly answer that question? She quickly realized she may have phrased her question poorly and asked differently, “Where are you in the grief process about your dad?” I hadn’t thought about it in those words so had to paused and process. Weeks later I still don’t really know how to answer her. Of the five classic stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance, I’ve been all over the place and certainly not in order. Angry?, yes. Denial? Certainly not. Even though it still feels like he just left for a really long trip from which we still await his return, I know he is gone and won’t be coming back in a physical sense, even though his ever present larger than life presence still hangs over all of us at family gatherings and the echoes at the VFW dance hall. Sometimes one stage slides into another from day to day, sometimes all at once. Each of us is different and we all process the grief in our own way, but losing a parent or sibling or other loved one is a universal experience suffered by all.

I use the tools I have been given by my therapist the best I can but sometimes I find my own ways to process my thoughts and feelings. Often times, I’ll go for a drive in the surrounding country side and get lost in my thoughts and memories as the tires hum down the dark county road asphalt. I grip the steering wheel, out my foot on the gas and let the passing homes and farms roll by like so many days and years. Sometimes I sense my dad’s presence next to me in the passenger seat, as usual, he’s looking at the passing sights and giving an ever persistent rambling monologue on all he sees and thinks. His voice is in my head as the miles roll by.

One of the constants in my life and relationship with my dad was driving. Pure and simple, wheels on the road. From day one, driving from point A to point B, short distances, long distances, some interminable. Dad at the wheel driving from Alton to Springfield, home to our family restaurant, St. Louis to Phoenix to visit the Hilligoss crew in their desert relocation. Ten minutes here, 2 hours there, all over Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and other surrounding states. Dad at the wheel listening to the news on AM radio and occasionally a Cardinals game on KMOX as he drove a series of cars from one place to another. A tan family Chevy Wagon, mom’s powder blue Chrysler New Yorker, his 1977 green Ford Thunderbird, the 1964 1/2 green convertible Mustang with a white top he was so proud of and a blue Ford ecocline van we used for catering. Have you ever stopped to consider simply the amount of miles you have either ridden or driven in your life. Between all of my travels with the family and my own driving as an adult for personal and business, I’ve calculated I’ve travelled roughly 3 million miles in 50 years of living. Yes, 3 million miles.

When I was a kid, dad didn’t talk to me directly much, often times if was just the two of us, he listened to the radio and kept the chatter to a bare minimum. If others were in the car, especially adults and family, I wasn’t part of the conversation and relegated to the way, way back of the station wagon. As I got older and especially after I started college, we started talking more. He was a history and social studies teacher off and on for 40 years and knew his stuff. He was fascinated with history, US history, the civil war, Native Americans, WW II and on and on. I studied history in college as well and we could talk and have intelligent conversations about where we as a family and a country came from, where we had been and where we were going as a people. We talked about music, politics, Illinois history, sports and everything in between. We talked, but mostly it was Bob talking as if he were in front of his classroom and I was the student, which I was, the classroom just happened to be on 4 wheels and moving down the highway at 65 miles per hour.

Over the years, dad took me and my brothers Kevin and Sean all over the country and we made several special road trips to take in the sites and experience as much as we could. Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma as we travelled along the ghost of Route 66. In Illinois, Mattoon near where the family was from, Charleston home of Eastern Illinois University where he and I along with our grandmother Letha Hilligoss attended as well as his brothers Ron and Rick. One epic trip, Kevin, dad and I drove up through Minnesota, South Dakota into Montana where we rode horse back through the Bitterroot Mountains taking in Custer’s Last Stand with Native American Crow guides, and on into Idaho, down through Wyoming and the Grand Teton’s where he insisted he get out of the car and bellow “Shane!!!! Come back Shane” just as they did in the movies when he was a boy. We drove to Archer City Texas so I could visit Larry McMurtry’s home town where The Last Picture Show was filmed and Larry’s one million book store collection. Louisville Kentucky to see Muhammad Ali’s boy hood home and grave site. Abraham Lincoln’s two homes in Indiana where he was originally born and raised. We saw as much as we could in the time allotted to us on any given trip, often arriving home exhausted and needing a vacation from our vacation. And all along the way, it was Bob doing most of the talking while we listened and tried our best to distract him and irritate him with our never ending nonsense. While driving through Yellowstone Park one day, he once told me to get out and go make fun of a nearby buffalo. Sure thing, “You stupid buffalo. Just look at you laying there. So stupid.”

For the last 25 years, anytime we were in the car together, I drove and he rode shotgun. My hands on the wheel and him refusing to buckle his seat belt until he heard the ding for the 100th time, “Oh, that must be me.” Yes, it’s you just like it is every time we get in a car. Always a cup of coffee in his hand, half a cup in a Styrofoam cup. I felt better about my chances of surviving the trip if I drove as when he drove he was too busy talking and having a good time to pay attention. So I drove and he rode and talked, his favorite past time and what he was famous for. His memory was astounding as he remembered facts, details, weather conditions, the prices of things like gas, bread, clothes going back to when he was a child. So he observed and talked and the rest of us did the driving. In the last few years, he occasionally would say cryptic things like, “If something were to happen to me, I want you to do…….”, this that and the other. Use this picture for my memorial service, play these songs, give XYZ to so and so. Never at home or sitting down, only when we were driving, that’s how his mind worked, only when in motion would he get serious for a moment. All my life, we shared countless memories, experiences and conversations on the road.

One of my favorite quotes comes from historian Douglas Brinkley in his cross country odyssey journal The Magic Bus, “Not all that is to be learned can be taught in the class room. And so we take to the open road.” Dad would never had read that book, but he exemplified and lived Brinkley’s message everyday of his life. Anytime I miss him, I imagine being behind the wheel with him next to me, hearing his voice explain the history of wherever it was we were passing through at any given moment, the teacher’s lessons never ending.

Today’s a beautiful day, I think I’ll take a drive. Let’s ride Bobby Lee.