In late October 2014, Hank Seaman, my best friend and the love of my life for 42 years, decided he was going to write his own obituary. I told him I didn’t want to use it for many years because I was counting on him to stick around.
Hank did. Until Oct. 31, 2020. That’s when I had to say goodbye.
After a debilitating stroke in 2004 at the age of 58, Hank gracefully and courageously battled an array of serious health challenges as he lived by the words “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” But this time there was just too much to overcome. Despite the very best efforts of doctors, nurses and medical staff in the St. Luke’s ICU, Hank died on Halloween, six days shy of his 75th birthday.
As you may already have guessed, this isn’t your ordinary obit. Because Hank was no ordinary guy. Everything he did … and there were so many things… he did with amazing talent and unflagging passion, along with a wicked and slightly bent sense of humor that he never lost, even with the daunting medical problems he faced.
That was in evidence that October night when Hank emailed me his suggested obit while I was at work at The Standard-Times. He began by saying “Budge” (pronounced Boooj, our nickname for each other) “please take my ego out of this and replace with a nice dollop of humble. Love you.”
He wrote it in the third person, reflecting his longtime journalism career, first as an award-winning Standard-Times photographer for 30 years, then as an S-T columnist for the six years prior to his stroke. Hank had a unique ability to connect with people from all walks of life and his columns (Snapshots, Portraits and Hank’s World) poignantly told their stories. After his stroke, Hank still wrote occasionally, often sharing lessons his illness had taught him. He was as talented a writer as photographer and won numerous writing awards (including Best New England Columnist three times) because, truth is, he excelled at everything he did.
So here’s what Hank and Susan have to say about Hank Seaman:
Born in Baltimore, MD on Nov. 6, 1945, Hank was the firstborn son of the late Henry R. Seaman and Anna (Jones) Seaman Mosher and grew up in Fall River and Somerset. A 1963 graduate of Somerset High School, he played several sports but his first love was baseball. He was named to All-Star teams at every level from the age of 11 to his mid-20s. He was captain of the SHS baseball team his senior year and while in high school, he spent two summers as a counselor at the elite Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville.
Hank, a standout pitcher, loved to tell the story of how he once struck Ted out. No matter that it came in a charity wiffle ball game. It was still the Splendid Splinter and Hank savored the bragging rights. That said, his offbeat sense of humor occasionally got him in a bit of trouble at the camp.
He recalled one particularly humorless camp reviewer, who, in assessing him as a counselor, wrote “Hank was well-liked by all the campers but had a tendency to fool around at times.” Hank being Hank, he was ready with a reply. “It doesn’t hurt anyone to laugh while doing a serious job well,” he said, delivering his response with a smile.
Hank was also a terrific artist, whose paintings and drawings earned him a scholarship to a Boston Museum of Fine Arts high school program. In 1973, he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Southeastern Massachusetts University, now UMass Dartmouth, where in 1965 he had co-captained the SMU baseball team. Hank and I would always joke he took the scenic route through college.
Along the way, Hank fell in love with photography and his striking and artistic photos earned him his job at The Standard-Times in 1968. Prior to that, he had been a political and sports cartoonist at a number of area newspapers including The Herald News, Somerset Spectator and S-T.
In April 2003, Hank’s multiple talents were on display at a one-man month-long show at his alma mater, UMass Dartmouth. It featured examples of his photography, painting, drawing and writing. To his delight and surprise, more than 100 people turned out for the opening reception. Hank, of course, had worried whether anyone would come.
Because his interests were so eclectic, Hank also liked golfing, racquetball and stamp collecting and he amassed a huge collection of movies and music (especially McCartney and The Beatles), with each of those spanning every imaginable genre.
While he had a longstanding interest in US History, he became an even more passionate student in the years after his stroke. When we were able to travel, we often went to presidential birthplaces and homesteads and Hank would always impress the tour guides with his vast knowledge about wherever we visited. He gobbled up books about American history, often reading several at the same time. Our home is filled with dozens of volumes he was looking to get through until, sadly, time ran out.
Oh yeah, Hank was also a major political junkie and was counting the hours until the Nov. 3 election. Ten days before his death, he Voted for Joe and I delivered his ballot to Dartmouth Town Hall where it has been marked “Accepted.” I’m still trying to deal with the fact that, good or bad, he won’t be here to talk about the outcome with me.
And to talk with me about everything else, too. In four decades of marriage, we never came close to running out of things to say to each other. He was always so on top of everything. Often when he’d come up with some obscure fact, I’d say “Where did you get that?” He’d always reply with a grin, “I’m smart, I know things.”
What I know is that in all our years of marriage, Hank never stopped making me think and laugh and learn. And now he has made me cry because we have lost him. But I know he was suffering and it was time to let him go. I’m devastated but eternally grateful that we had him as long as we did. He will always be in my heart. And the hearts of so many others.
Because at the top of Hank’s list for what truly matters in life was his love for his family and friends. He was so very proud of his daughter Dr. Kristen Seaman, a Yale and Berkeley grad and an art history professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene. They talked on the phone all the time, often about McCartney. Kris was going to buy him the latest album, set to release in December.
As for me, I can’t begin to count the times Hank told me I was his “hero” when it came to caring for him after his stroke and how lucky he was to have me.. I always told him I was lucky to have him and he’d do the same if the shoe was on the other foot. That’s what you do when you love somebody as much as we loved each other. I’m so thankful that we made it to our 42nd anniversary on Oct. 28.
Then there’s his brother Wayne Seaman, his wife Karen and their daughter Jenny, all of New Hampshire and my brother Mark Pawlak and wife Stephanie of Westport. and their kids Elliott and Sophie. Wayne, Karen, Jen, Mark and Steph were all by my side and Hank’s when he passed. In the final hours, I held the phone to his ear as Kristen, Sophie and Elliott called to say goodbye. All of them were so special to him and we’re all finding it hard to process how life will be without him.
So are Hank’s many, many devoted friends and SHS ‘63 classmates who played an immensely important role in the quality of his life. And mine. He loved people and he instantly made friends everywhere he went, including an extended family at Care One New Bedford where he spent a total of seven months during two rehab stints. Thanks to them, I had him home from late April to early July before he took ill again and I treasure that time.
Even our pets are struggling. Our pup Kandee loved her Dad and when he was home, looked forward to the daily Greenies he’d give her. When he was gone, I’d often put her on the phone with him and she’d bark and howl to the sound of his voice. Now she’s taken to sitting in “Hank’s chair” while our cats Bogie and Jazzie often seem to be wandering the house, wondering where he went. They’re all alums of the Lighthouse Animal Shelter on Hathaway Road in New Bedford and Hank asked anyone who’d like to remember him to consider a donation there.
Hank had one more request in his obit selfie: that “people bestow acts of outrageous kindness upon each other.”
In death, Hank has joined his parents, Anne and Henry; his sister Deborah (Seaman) Borden Russo; his nephew Errol Borden; stepfather Howard C. Mosher and stepbrother Leroy Mosher..
Hank’s burial at Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, is private and being handled by Potter Funeral Home, 81 Reed Road, Westport. But come Spring and hopefully an easing of Covid, I’ll be planning a celebration of Hank’s Wonderful Life. I’ll keep you posted.