Jim Huber - A Thousand Goodbyes: A Sons Reflection on Living, Dying, and the Things that Matter Most

Through the years, Jim Huber has brought compassion and insight to countless assignments. Jim wasnt assigned this story, but more than any other it was one he had to tell.

Bob Costas, NBC Sports

Jim Huber has been one of the most eloquent on-air essayists in sports broadcasting history, and now his touching and inspirational book on the death of his father also puts him in a category with the very best writers on the printed page. Its a beautiful story well told by the loving son of a remarkable father facing death with great dignity and courage.

Leonard Shapiro, Sports Columnist for the Washington Post

Jim Huber is a master at finding the humanity in our heroes. He does it better than ever in this thoughtful tribute to his own hero, his father.

Jaime Diaz, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated

I enjoyed a very special relationship with my father. He was not only my father, but also my mentor, my biggest supporter, and my closest friend. To this day, I miss him and that bond we shared. A Thousand Goodbyes says many of the things I wish I could have said when my father died. I have known Jim Huber for years, and on both sides of the camera. In this writing, Jim is at his finest. He gives the reader wonderful insight not only into the father but the son as well.

Jack Nicklaus, Legendary PGA Professional

Read this warm, wise, and compassionate book and youll understand why more sports celebrities would rather talk to Jim Huber than almost anyone else in the broadcasting field.

John Maxim, Author of The Shadow Box and Whistlers Angel

Rarely will you ever read a more touching portrait of death making its cruel approach. A son and his father, the son just as I once felt, that my father would always be there. But it is not to be, as Jim Huber so graphically assures us. It is beautiful in its own sad way, yet lovely to see the last bonding of a father and son and their undying love.

Furman Bisher, Sports Editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

a thousand goodbyes

2001 by Jim Huber

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations in this publication are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Huber, Jim.

A thousand goodbyes : a sons reflection on living, dying, and the things that matter most / Jim Huber.

p. cm.

ISBN: 0-7852-6688-7

1. FathersDeathPsychological aspects. 2. Fathers and sons. I. Title.

BF789.D4 H69 2001

155.9'37dc21

2001030634

Printed in the United States of America

01 02 03 04 05 BVG 5 4 3 2 1

To my father. Better late than never.

contents

The day was glorious, bright and shiny and full of promise. If only my golf game could have matched that radiance. I have played the game for years, but on this particular day it was almost as if I had never picked up a club before; if I wasnt pulling the ball left, I was pushing it deep right. My partner and our opponents cringed at my games disintegration for, though the stakes this day had grown considerably, we were all friends and would likely match up again the next Saturday in a different order.

If I didnt take up crocheting in the meantime.

We were on the sixteenth fairway. Actually, they were. I was dead left again and stymied. My ball was sitting between the exposed roots of a giant Georgia pine, which stood directly in my path to the green. I assessed my options, which seemed to be somewhere between slim and none. I could simply pitch it back into the fairway and hope to get up and down for par or I could try to avoid the roots and hook it blindly around the tree, praying that somehow it would find its way home.

Or there was a third possibility.

It would be so easy and no one would ever know. All I had to do was nudge the golf ball a bit to the right, away from the tree, to give myself a perfect line to the green. Its called a foot wedge and, who knows, a couple of good ones and Id nearly be back in the fairway. None of the others in my foursome was near; they were off elsewhere tending to their own problems, probably never giving thought to what might have been going through my mind at that moment. If, however, it had been someone else in there, he would likely have had an escort. One notorious fellow would occasionally join us and, at least once a round, hit one dead into the pines and disappear for a few minutes on his own in search of his ball. Always came the resulting call:

I found it! he would yell. And believe it or not, I have a shot!

We believed itand didntbut grudgingly put up with his waywardness. Cheating is so abhorrent in any form of life, but in golf it is nearly sacrilegious; the game was built hundreds of years ago around the honor system. Yes, you can cheat and you might win, but like anything else, its the post-cheat that gets you. Try to look your opponent in the eyes or yourself in the mirror. Try to sleep at night. Try to justify it. Theres no way.

Still, I was entertaining thoughts of a bit of thievery now. (Frustration will do that to you!) A voice whispered, so slightly that I thought it was the wind in the branches overhead. Perhaps it was.

After looking around and finding no one, I stood back over the ball, pondering my move. I thought of an old comrade, dead and gone now, who had played with holes in the right front pocket of his pants where he always kept a spare golf ball. Whenever he went into the woods after an errant shot and discovered he was in trouble, he would simply work the extra ball down through that hole. It would roll down his pants leg and onto the ground, wherever he wanted it, usually in near-perfect position. One day, someone in another fairway, unbeknownst to this particular fellow, actually stood and watched him do it and the word quickly spread. We continued to play with him but never when it counted for anything. Cheating is a difficult subject to broach with someone you think of as a friend and so, to avoid a conflict, we ignored him... but kept a close eye, just the same.

On this day, however, I wondered, what could the harm be in a bit of rearranging? As bad as my fortunes had gone this day, the game owed me something. Almost enough motivation to cut a hole in my pocket... but not quite.

The breeze returned in the still of the hot summer afternoon, a murmured admonition: Im watching you.

It was my fathers raspy voice, as sure as I was facing double bogey. The same playful lilt I had grown to love over the last few decades was masking a very definite threat. I could see him smiling, knowing he had touched me deep inside. He had never in his life played the game of golf, but here he was, in death, enforcing its rules.

You have a shot? yelled one of my opponents from across the fairway, snapping me out of my reverie.

No, I grudgingly answered, looking upward all the while, no shot. Ive gotta pitch out.

Pity. Too bad. The subsequent snide laughter was part of the ritual.

It has happened so often, in so many differing situations, in the months since my fathers death, that it is beyond coincidence. I was raised to recognize an inner conscience but it never had a voice, never had a name, never smiled, until he took over. I had grown to believe that I was my own arbiter, that once I had become old enough to know right from wrong, once the standards had been set, I would become my own Jiminy Cricket. And whatever I decided was based on my own code of conduct.