Ryan Hoblitzell was 30 years old when he passed away on September 28, 2017, eight years ago today. Born in 1986 to William (Bill) and Maryann he grew up in Freehold with his brother Eric. He attended Georgian Court University where he graduated with his BSN and at the time of passing he worked as a Registered Nurse in the Cardiac Care Unit at Jersey Shore University Hospital.
In 2014 he married Allison and moved to Tinton Falls. He was a die-hard fisherman spending his childhood fishing Lake Topanemus before moving up and on to fishing big waters for big fish with his brother and father.
Since 2017 there are two posts that you can count on each year. August 18th and September 23rd. Those are my son's Ryan's birthday and death day. At the time of his death, which was by suicide, Ryan was 21 years old. Now each late summer my stomach starts to churn knowing those two dates are approaching. Celebrating "anniversaries", not so much. What they are, to me, are reminders of what I, and his family, and his friends, had lost.
There are times when I mourn the loss of my son, but then there's times when I'm just pissed off that he chose to take his own life. Think what you want of suicide; end of someone's pain, not a choice, or being a better place. To me, as a parent of a young adult who died by suicide I believe that it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem (usually), and it is very, very selfish. And I've always pointed at the irony of me being a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, who has diagnosed, prescribed meds, and provided therapy to suicidal patients from 10 to 80 years old. A big miss there on my part.
In addition to those two posts I also know I'll be getting, and returning texts, from Bill Hoblitzell. He and Maryann would send their condolences, and Theresa and I would send ours. What is it interesting is how you never know what road you will meet another person on, and for what reason. They say people come into our life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Bill and I have been connected, without knowing it, for probably 30 years, so many similarities and a circle of the same friends. I've never went into detail on how Bill and I are connected each September. While I usually don't ask for permission when writing these posts, this time I did and Bill honored my request. I have written about some tough stuff here, mine and others, and always do so respectfully, with the hope of not offending anyone.
So here I go. It may be a bit long, but it's a good ride. Captain Bill Hoblitzell is a mans man. I know him from his fishing side. In the 1990's he was one of the OG's (original gangsters) who was a fly fishing guide out of the old Fly Hatch on Broad Street in Red Bank. He did that with Dick Dennis, Paul Eidman, and Dave Choinard. All of those guys I consider friends to this day.
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| Harker's Island 2002 |
Bill, aka Outback Fishing Charters, had the first Jones Brothers 19'-10" Cape Fisherman ( That's my ride) running out of the shop. I am sure I had met Bill back then but remember I could have cared less about saltwater fly fishing when I was a customer or fill-in helper at The Fly Hatch. I was all about Upper Delaware trout at that time.
I think I first "met" Bill around 2008 when I started fly fishing for striped bass on the Jersey Shore and created what has become The Average Angler. He was one of the regulars with the fly rod I would hope to catch each morning. I would usually see Billy with his buddy Marco somewhere around Belmar.
Our circles of Jersey Shore fly rodder-friends would overlap. Guys like Massey, Shapiro, Denny, Doherty, Phiefer, and Petterson. It's a relatively small group so we were brought together through our passion of fly fishing for striped bass. When Bill was solo I would catch him up in my neck of the woods which was what I considered my home water being the groins in Deal.
In 2012 I caught Billy throwing the fly rod one beautiful morning in Deal. It was then he told me that his son Ryan was graduating from Georgian Court University with his BSN. I had been in that game since my graduation in 1995 so it was something we had in common to talk about. Thanks to Bill I was able to turn that image into a paycheck as The Fisherman Magazine picked it up to accompany an article or advertisement in one of their issues.
When my world was shattered in 2017 I got lots of love from so many people. And my fishing buddies didn't disappoint. I remember that difficult night at Ryan's wake on September 27th at the John Day Funeral Home in Red Bank.
As I stood at the podium giving Ryan's eulogy I remember seeing Billy seated with the other fishermen in the wake room that was pretty much standing room only. It would be that night where me and Billy's lives would intersect again, this in the worst possible way.
One thing I always say and try to live my life by, "Don't tell other people's stories". Well, from this perspective it's kind of a co-story between Billy and I.
Bill came to Ryan's wake after a day of work. Work can be tiring. And wakes, funerals, and weddings can be exhausting, both physically and emotionally. So when his Ryan, yes we both had and lost Ryans, called him that night to join him for a late night fishing excursion Bill gently declined. It's just one of those things. You say no, you don't call, you don't go, and in the end you just didn't know what would or could have happened. It's like the morning of September 11th, how many what-if stories have we heard.
Ryan was planning on going fishing, which he did when not at work saving others whose heart was broken, in search of catfish the state had stocked into Lake Topenemous. Lake Topenmous. That was his home water. He knew it like the back of his hand.
I knew Lake Topanemus as well. I was super fishy when I was a kid. I grew up in Millstone fishing the farm's irrigation ponds. But I went to grammar school at St. Rose of Lima in Freehold and would spend a lot of time at my buddy Jody Gilpin's house. He also liked to fish. So we would drive some bikes from his house on Hull Avenue to Pond Road to the lake. That was like 1980. A few years later, when I could drive, I would go on to date a girl from Monument Street, of which Pond Road was the extension, and the parking lot at Lake Topanemus was the place for some late night star gazing and ....
On the morning of September 28th I learned that Billy's son Ryan had been in a boating accident and was missing. The younger Hoblitzell, like a die-hard fisherman, stayed with his plan and went that night with a friend. Something happened in that boat around 3 am and Ryan went missing. Circumstances regarding the incident were hard to digest then, and for some, remain to this day.
Twelve hours later Hoblitzell's body was found and he was pronounced deceased.
While I can't imagine what Bill and Maryann and their family were going though I can tell you it hit Theresa and I hard. But this isn't about me, but it kind of is. You see, if Ryan hadn't taken his own life then Billy wouldn't had been at his wake. The two, well all three of them, Hoblitzell men were fishy, and if you're fishy you know what that means..... you go fishing. So in addition to the "What are talking about?", when I learned what had happened on the night of Ryan's wake, the chance circumstance of it all was a gut punch. Did my son's selfish act of suicide cause my friend's son's death?
I think, for 8 years now, I've struggled with that without really knowing. You see, that trauma we all face is a nasty thing. It's right there, or it's been healed over, or, it hides itself deep in your brain and alters the way you think and live until it rears its ugly head. So I now understand why, in some part, those September thoughts and prayers between me and Bill bring on an extra dose of uneasiness. Now to be honest, at some pint early on I apologized for what happened to his Ryan because of what my Ryan had done. I know there's no blame there, but.... you have to wonder, and that's what I do. Every action has a reaction. Actions have consequences. And some things, when they occur, cause collateral damage.
So for the rest of my life, every August and September, as I have done for the last eight years, Ryan Archer's death, isn't remembered alone. There's another Ryan, Hoblitzell, who is part, to me, of the bigger story. And while you can just shake your head and say, "That's just all f'ed up", it's hopefully part of God's plan. It is written in the Bible that God said, "No temptation has overtaken you what is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it". To note, temptation is Greek for pierasmos, or suffering. We've dumbed that down to "God won't give you more than you can handle". For some things, that's way easier said than done. But you gotta believe, or not.
Those boys were good boys. Ryan H. maybe a little more of mans man than Ryan A., who was more cerebral and a genius type thinker. The earlier could probably kick your ass where the later would destroy you in a debate on the theory of relativity. I hope they have met up in heaven, brought together, like their father's, in this thing called life and death.
And I hope they, like Billy and I, are able to share a tide this fall where the weather is perfect, the fish are biting, and God's space, either down here or up there, is beautiful in every way. You just never know what's going to happen each and very day, so much of a reason to enjoy it and keep your family and friends close. And strangers as well, as they can become part of your life in the future, and then forever.