If I was asked to think of a song lyric that got me to thinking about Ben Hiscox, I would have to say it would be the opening line of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird. It went: “If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?” A year on from his passing, we all know the answer. Oh yes, we remember you, all right.
A year ago, I woke to the terrible news that Ben had left us. I received a text from old pal Mike Airs which took several minutes to digest and a whole year to fail to understand why it had been Ben, of all people, who had been taken from us. Shock comes in all shapes and sizes, but this was seismic. It was an earthquake in the village of Stoke Gifford. If anything, these words underplay the shock we all felt. The aftershocks are still with us today.
From his accident to his passing, time stood still and yet it flew. A year has flown by and yet it feels like time has stood still. There was no rhyme, no reason, for what happened; no essence of fairness, no justice and no happy ending. Good people doing the right thing, families living happily together doing no harm to anyone and doing good things for everyone. This wasn’t right, was it? No one deserved it, least of all Ben, a larger than life character with a lion-sized heart. Someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s partner, someone’s uncle and everyone’s friend.
And now I write about what happened last year and it might as well be today. I wish it had been a horrible dream, the ultimate nightmare and that one day I would wake up, in a start, and carry on as if nothing had happened.
Will we ever stop feeling sad about Ben Hiscox? Only when the world stops turning, when there’s no sun in the sky and no air left to breathe.
If I leave here tomorrow and you remembered me like you remember Ben, it will surely have been a life well lived. Perhaps some people would shed a tear but I really wouldn’t want you to. If you could, I would want you to celebrate my life, warts and all and I would rather you dwelled on the good parts and the funny parts.
And guess what? Tomorrow, the sun is going to shine again for Ben Hiscox, like it always does. He made me laugh and he made me cry and tomorrow, as the sun goes down over Ben’s special bench on the village green, I will raise a glass, at the Beaufort Arms in the company of his family and friends, to the most special of people.
The mould was thrown away when Ben Hiscox came along. There was only one, there will never be another. And now we must celebrate his life. Can you really imagine him wanting it any other way?
“Cause I’m as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change.”
