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Bo-Hawg

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https://bohawg.com/

The Bo-Hawg is a love letter to my pops

I was so afraid that my dad would disappear. He was the constant in my life. In the life of my siblings (wave, they’re up top!), my mom, and for some people outside of our family. There was only one G.B.

That fear of him disappearing emerged in the aftermath of losing him to a freak brain bleed in 2022. Thinking about it now, it still feels like some crazy fever dream.

I began noodling ideas of how to keep my pops in the forefront of my mind.

First, I made stickers of an iconic bobblehead drawing of him that my mom commissioned in the ’80s. Then, I got that bobblehead tattooed on my leg accompanied by five things my pops loved (more on that later). I had our good friend, and amazing designer Chase Bendik, mock up a “Mardi Gator” version of the bobblehead and then proceeded to plaster it on plastic cups I threw to over 50,000 strangers at Mardi Gras.

Still, his presence felt fragmented. The reality that I would never get a text, phone call, or a hug was raw and painful. It still is.

He wasn’t there to help my brother and I fry fish for the rehearsal dinner at my wedding, a menu he had prepared a few months before he died. I thought about him missing that day, and then my mind spiraled into realizing he won’t be there for so many more milestones that occur. I also thought about all of the people that would never get to meet him.

These realizations made my attempts to keep him present seem meaningless and pointless.

One night I was listening to some old voicemails I had saved and came across one from April 2018:

Hey son. I’m going to have you a part time job this summer. Seriously thinking of doing Bo-Hawg Seafood…get a little building outside of the office and sell shrimp, make gumbo, west indies salad, oyster salad. Seriously. Cash money. Might need somebody to help me.

The Bo-Hawg® is one of the five items tattooed around the bobblehead. I had been looking at it everyday. I have an original Bo-Hawg® t-shirt from the 1980s incorporated into a quilt that my friend made me that I use all the time.

My pops loved The Bo-Hawg®.  It is the namesake of a failed charter-fishing business that he, my two grandfathers, and uncle started in the mid-’80s. The logo is what we call “The Pig Fish.” There’s a lot more lore and legend to the fishing side of this, but I will save that for later. He tried to rebrand it throughout his life, but it just couldn’t seem to get traction.

After hearing that voicemail, thinking about the tattoo and the blanket, the answer to how I could share my pops with the world was obvious: The Bo-Hawg®.

It is one his most beloved creations that never got the props he felt it deserved.

So, let me introduce to the brand that is for anyone with the mindset that life’s purpose is ultimately doing what you love with the people you love.

It is for souls that are active, bold and adventurous. It is for humans that prefer to chill, relax and lay in the cut. It is for those that are a little bit of everything all rolled into one.

Our designs are a nod to the inspiration that started it all – my dad, whose vibes continue to fuel our fun-loving style.

Events from this organizer
Today

The Higher Education Leave Plan: A Practical Toolkit to HELP Bereaved College Students

The Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town 800 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Albuquerque, NM, United States
Virtual Event Virtual Event

Despite 40% of students being within two years of losing a loved one, the majority of higher education institutions (HEIs) do not have student bereavement policies. In response, the Higher Education Leave Plan (HELP) was formed in conjunction with Evermore, a national, non-partisan nonprofit, to develop a pragmatic toolkit to help HEIs support grieving students, including templates, policy examples, strategic approaches to bereavement programs, and a database of institutions with such policies. Attendees will leave with practical knowledge, including various tangible HELP toolkit components, resources focused on the unique needs of bereaved students, and feasible, low-cost ways to assist them. At the completion of this presentation, participants will be able to: Describe the benefits of a centralized bereavement/grief absence policy for students Express the key components of a bereavement/grief absence policy for students Utilize the HELP toolkit to formulate a student bereavement leave policy at their own institution

$695

The Future of Bereavement Care: Recent National Developments

The Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town 800 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Albuquerque, NM, United States

In 2023, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a little-known federal agency, was Congressionally directed during FY23 to establish an evidence base for what constitutes high-quality bereavement and grief care. As a result, AHRQ commissioned a systematic review, which was informed by an independent subject matter experts panel, to assess the feasibility of developing consensus-based quality standards for high-quality grief and bereavement care. In June 2024, AHRQ, in partnership with the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), hosted the expert panel of academics, federal policy officials, and leaders from local and national non-profits in Rockville, Maryland. The panel discussed the draft systematic report (which was also available for public comment) reviewing interventions to improve the care of bereaved persons, including “evaluations of screening approaches, diagnostic accuracy studies, grief interventions, and treatment of grief disorder studies reporting on an intervention and concurrent control group or comparator intervention” (Executive Summary). Literature searches identified 8,301 articles, 3,497 of which were obtained as full text, but only 166 met the eligibility criteria to be considered in the report. Feedback from the experts and public will be incorporated into a final report anticipated to be released in the Fall of 2024 (i.e., […]

$695

Oh, Broken-Open Heart: A Poetry Gathering for Mourners and Mothers

Virtual Event Virtual Event

Join Reimagine and Evermore for an hour and a half of poetry, writing, conversation, and connection. Poets James Crews and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer provide a virtual refuge for people who have lost a mother/mother figure or a child. Mother’s Day can be an especially difficult time for those of us who have lost a mother or child—whether the loss is through death or estrangement. Perhaps you feel isolated, angry, or frustrated. Perhaps you struggle with feeling down on a day heralded as a celebration. Perhaps you are just plain sad. You are not alone. Join us for this intimate, whole-heart-affirming program, led by James Crews (who lost his mother) and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (who lost her son), which begins with the poets sharing poems and speaking openly about how writing has helped them meet grief. Then they will offer invitations for participants to do their own writing, followed by a conversation about what rises up when we turn toward our loss and write into our heartache. This is a chance to both mourn and honor. A chance to integrate loss into our lives, weaving it into the larger tapestry of who we are and how we meet the world. It’s […]

$15