Eulogy 9 - Eulogy for David Hawker (1946-2015)

 

EULOGY FOR OUR FRIEND, 

DAVID HAWKER

(Eulogy written and delivered by Warren Maloney
on Thursday, 8th October 2015) [1]
 

Well, David, our friend, today it is our chance to say goodbye.   



 I remember back in August sitting with you in your Lumeah Lodge room and how we had wandered, as you do comfortably with old friends, over the usual range of topics from Collingwood and Carlton’s performance (or lack thereof) to Volkswagen cars to hours on the lawn mower to each other’s health (or what health we were prepared to discuss) to why Tiger Woods could not recover the magic; and then we dipped into silence.

I remember that it was not the silence of exhaustion – nor was it that hospital silence of awkwardness. No, it was a silence without having to explain. 

After a little while you tried to show me that you could stand and move with the aid of the walking frame. You were not successful and we both sat down again. You paused then said, “I am OK with this.”  Well of course that was more for my sake than the complete truth by you but we both understood, and we drifted back into a conversation of memories.

We had gone down those memory conversation trails a few times before as we remembered snippets from the 70s when you, the all-knowing motor assessor, tried to explain to me how the car damage would tell me more about the driver than my endless statements from witnesses. I guess you knew then that mechanics were (and still are) a foreign language to me.

 We remembered our tussles with Wilmott and Morgan, our parsimonious employers, and the day of the long knives when they cleared out the office of those pesky questioners.

 Over the next 20 years we picked up the occasions of meeting again as you, David, led the way again on motor assessments and how I used your knowledge and friendship in building the Insurance Underwriting and Brokerage businesses.

 And then there was the delightful realisation that our paths to retirement led to the same village of Daylesford. Nice, easy moments again as we bantered about football, delighted in crossing paths at Kim & Garry’s Café 3460 and at Frank & Rose’s afternoon movies, and pretended that we still had golfing skills at Royal Trentham.

 Then there was the famous dinner where Karen and I thought it would be great to have two couples who didn’t know each other but where the males at least had aspects of Insurance involvement to get some conversation going.

Within minutes of the arrival of Janine and David and John and Jan Smith, it was clear that conversation would not be a problem as David and John quickly established that they had grown up streets apart in Oakleigh, had gone to the same Primary school, had been caddies and ball hustlers and junior golfers together at the same club and had even appeared on the GTV9 Tarax Show together. It was a wonderful dinner as Karen and me realised that these 2 remembered childhoods could just take care of themselves at the table. The other 4 of us could almost slink away without being noticed or missed.

 Such is the delight of old friendships, of shared work, of shared life experiences. You just understand the impacts of lost and won footy matches, of Gough Whitlam and the Vietnam issues, of emotional movies watched and of World Events that changed our families.

 We could smile at our dreams of Coodabeen Champions and we could regret together the moments when we were truly “blowing in the wind.”

 Of course, we all wish that parts of our lives had never happened, but they did, and we all learn to cope and find a way forward.

Part of our way forward, David, is to say thank you for the friendship, for the many, many laughs, for your attempts to turn me into a mechanic and away from Carlton football Club, for the times we talked and for the times we sat quietly.

Thanks for every one of those times, David. 




[1] David Roy Hawker (1946-2015) was the Husband of Janine Lyall Hawker (nee Molloy), and the Father of Paul-Michael & Peta Hawker


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