It is with intense sadness that I recently learned of the passing of one of my oldest friends Nabeel Babbie.

Nabeel was one of those people who would honestly do anything to help out another. We shared so many memories together and I was overcome with grief when I learned that he had tried to reach out to me after all these years through facebook via his daughter Sarah. Unfortunately the facebook new chats section has been overtaken by young girls attempting to attract people to their various websites for what I assume to be some kind of monetary support that I hardly look at it anymore. Which has prompted me to place my email address (holland123@comcast.net) on facebook for easy connection.

I first met Nabeel through mutual friends Lee Weisman and Steve Lovinger. The year was about 1975-76. We quickly became good friends. Early on I saw the genuine goodness that resided inside Nabeel. He was a sort of gentile giant, in such a way that precluded him from ever speaking or acting out with ill will towards anyone. I would go over to Nabeel’s house after school and we would hang out and talk about the future and Ms Babbie (Nabeel's awesome mom) would ALWAYS come upstairs to say hello and typically she would entice me with food “are you hungry?”, “you look hungry Kevin, let me fix you something to eat”. And yes, there was always something delicious afoot at Nabeel’s house, she is/was very capable in the kitchen. ( I am also very saddened to learn of her Alzheimers diagnosis). This was my first introduction to Middle Eastern food and it was truly delightful. Nabeel loved 60’s and 70’s rock music and his absolute favorite musical group at that time was Dire Straits. We would especially listen to their first few albums over and over. To this day when I hear Dire Straits I immediately think of Nabeel. In those days Nabeel was also very protective over his next younger sister Neda. She was very cute and good lord if anyone even looked at her wrongly they would suffer the Babbie wrath. Nabeel did not get angry very often but when he did… look out, he was a bull.

The Summer after we graduated He and I embarked on a bicycle tour around Lake Huron. We started off in Port Huron and rode all the way to Sault St. Marie Ontario where we were picked up by another friend Dan Parker. That ride took us about 3 or 4 weeks. That is a memory that I shared with Nabeel that I will cherish forever. We both started College together at Wayne State where he studied Journalism and I studied business Admin. Nabeel’s dream was to be a sports writer. He loved sports, loved to talk sports, loved sports statistics and everything about it. He also wanted to write a book. I remember at the time he had actually started to write one but I am not sure what ever came with that. He was a very good wordsmith. We (Nabeel, Lee, Steve, Dean Ferrari and I) even slept outside one very cold winter night at Olympia stadium to score tickets to a Red Wings playoff game. He was a huge Detroit sports fan.

We would sometimes carpool down to school and Yes I would invariably ride in his White GTO. However, This was not just a run of the mill GTO. This car was a ‘71 or ‘72 Pontiac Le Mans GTO SS with a 4 barreled 442cc engine under the factory scooped hood. That car was one of only something like 500 made. It was so rare that his insurance company would not fully cover it for damage. Nabeel and I would often go out bar hopping on a Saturday night especially to the dance clubs of the time, (a little known fact is that we both Loved to dance). Nabeel was actually a very good dancer and was quite light on his feet especially for being a rather big guy. It was one of these Saturday nights that he and I had just left a dance club on Woodward in Royal Oak and as we were heading to our favorite after hour restaurant the “Clock” for some pancakes, right around 2 am that a woman slammed into the side of his GTO causing irreparable damage. As we waited for a tow truck Nabeel just sat down on the curb that night and cried like a baby. We both knew that that was the end of an era.

I also remember when Nabeel met Cheryl, the love of his life. He told me shortly afterward that THIS was the girl he was going to marry. From that time on we saw very little of him. Nabeel had very specific dreams and one of them was to have a wife, 3 kids, a house with the white picket fence and a dog. (He was oddly specific).  He then devoted all of his attention to that dream. He was the very first one of our group to get married, which was indeed the most unusual wedding that I had ever been to. As I watched the outpouring of love at the funeral it is apparent that he succeeded in his dreams and I truly wish that I had been able to reconnect with him. I am sorry Babs, I love you and miss you. I look forward until we meet again and can have a beer. Kevin Hollander