For the past twenty plus years Rob Hogan has called me every spring. In the fall we get together at my house for some man, dad, how’s your back and everything else talk. The chat takes place behind my shed as we unload and stack the dry fire wood he brings for the coming winter.

Whatever I am doing I work hard not to miss our fall talk. Because you see, Rob radiates such a strong, life loving force that he betters my day every time I see him.

Rob is not coming this fall. He has been in intensive care at UNC hospital for the last 2 weeks fighting for his life. Hours after a minor fall while stepping off his tractor, he suffered major tissue and organ failures.

Rob is one of the best loved people in Chapel Hill. As of today there are over 45,000 visits to his care website. No one can understand why this kind, gentle farmer is suddenly so violently sick.

I forgot I shot this photo of Rob last year. I had walked up to him as he was haying in the field across from the farmhouse. Ironically I shot it just as he climbed off his old tractor, as he has done countless times. He didn’t see my camera right away so I was able to catch something of that full twinkling eye smile of his—a smile so many of us long to see again.

I've made many better photos in the past fifty years but I have not made a photo of a better man.

Update: Despite remarkable efforts by his medical team,family, friends and community, Rob's life was taken on Friday October 8, 2010. He was 54 years old. Chapel Hill has lost a good man.

For more information about Rob, here is his care website:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/robandannhogan

A note to Rob's friends about commenting. This photo member site is set up so that a guest comment does not get displayed until the photographer reviews it. So you only have to hit submit once.