My Friend is Gone.

 

My great good friend Thom Hoffman lost his life last night.

He fought his battles for as long as he could. In the end, the pain, incalculable to the rest of us, was too great for his soul to withstand.

He was a singular father to his two young boys, Finn and Cayde. He tried, despite his struggles, to be the best husband and partner to Jenn.

Thom’s was an incandescent talent. There are but a small handful of writers about whom I can say, “Their stuff is brilliant.” T.C. Boyle, David Foster Wallace, David Mas Masumoto. And Thom Hoffman. Yes, his work was the equal of any of my greats of modern American letters.

Thom’s work drew upon his quotidian life. When I first met Thom, he was a penguin-keeper at the San Diego Zoo. He knew his birds as if they were all his friends, and they clustered around him as if he was the Big Man on Campus. He wrote about his life with the birds in such intimacy that you felt you could, if you were plopped down at the Zoo, identify each bird on the basis of Thom’s prose alone.

Later, he worked as a cashier at Whole Foods. He was a listener, a questioner, and a remember-er of names and stories that, when put down onto paper, elevated the most mundane of tales into sublime glimpses at the human spirit.

Towards his end, Thom became a certified chef. No surprise, his food was a precisely prepared and plated as was his prose. His writings on food, far too few, smacked of Bourdain, Gael Greene, Bruni – except Thom’s work had the unmistakable swash-buckle of Hoffman.

Thom was, behind the scenes, a huge supporter of the Dad-Blogging community. He reached out to dozens of us: if you wrote a post that was heartbreaking, Thom would remind you that he, and many others, were there for you. If you wrote a post which celebrated a #DadWin, Thom was there to share the joy. Hardly any signposts in my writing life passed by without a text, email, or message from The Hoff. <FYI-He hated that phrase.>

Thom had diagnosable mental health issues. He did his best to stay with his treatments. He fell into the abyss that is substance abuse in an effort to kill the pain. He climbed back out. And fell back in. Through it all, he desperately tried to maintain a sense of normalcy for the kids.

In the end, the pain was too great. His was an extraordinary soul. I am always grateful for his friendship. I mourn the loss to his family and friends. I will miss him.

And in the end, I take solace that this gentle soul, this Thom Hoffman, is at rest.