Updated: 03/17/2018*

A Father's Greatest Pride

Flowing down the river, sitting beside my aging wife and my wrinkled hand held tightly in hers, I recalled all the things that had come to pass, and how like the river, I had flowed down with it.

I wondered on when I had been a wee lad.

Three, no four feet tall, fever took my mother before I truly knew her, and that is when my father came to call.

I left my wooden horse for sterner things when he took me from that drab farm boy life.

My battle-hardened and veteran battered father, Gustav of the Northlands, or as he was most known as, the Ice Cyclops. Now that man was a beast of a man. He had thrown me into the wilderness to fend and feed myself, hunting elk, bear, moose, anything that moved, especially those that wanted a bite out of my scrawny self. As I think back, it was as if he was pleasuring in my fear, and welcoming my hatred of harshness life could give. I grew the hard way, empty mouth, empty stomach, but filled with the drive to get out of the hell-hole I found myself in.

I knew one thing.

I would grow strong.

I built my own log house with my own bloody two hands, made work wherever I was able, and secured my future with the drop of an anvil. Funding and running a mercantile buisness was not easy, but that is how I preferred my life. The things that came hard in this life were and will be the most satisfying in my opinion.

When given the chance, I took a stab at doing one of the hardest and most rewarding decisions a man can take. I married the most wit-filled and downright charming woman I had ever the pleasure of meeting. I made it my intent to make her one of the happiest women in all of Leiden. It was a profession I could boast was the greatest accomplishment, and never-ending uphill battle, Sisyphus wit my boulder, and some woman enjoyed torturing men that dropped dead in love at the sight of them, and perhaps the masochist in me enjoyed it, most definitely. (I only boasted that to a handful of people, and never where she could hear, bless the soul that told her that.)

Nevertheless, I soon learned, all Hodgins men were born to greatness.

Nothing made that more clear when my wife blest me with my three sons.

Riley, Ashley, and my little Claudia.

They were all three meant to be girls. The midwife had said it, my wife had repeated to family and friends, and so I had planned it. But it would seem the Fates meant to give me boys. I think I was more heartbroken than my wife. I had always imagined having girls to watch over their Papa, and in a way my wife named them after a fashion to torture me some more. (The woman is merciless I tell you.) As they grew, I made them men worthy of the name Hodgins. War would make them each a veteran, and afterwards, when they were men of a changed nature, each one chose to become something different to what I expected.

One a carpenter.

One a railroad man.

The last… a visionary.

I was proud of my sons.

In ten years, the eldest, Riley, had become part of the largest Lumber Company in the South provinces of Telesis. The second, Ashley, was championing our family buisness, as one of the most competitive mercantile and textile shipping services, expanding our profits in the railroad so that our product and revenue expanded to all corners of the continent. And my Claudia, my little visionary, he would go on to create and personally run the first ever private owned Postal Company, serving the public after the War. When asked, in truth, I loved all three of my sons, because the love I shared for life and my wife reflected in each of them.

As my wife had proudly boasted at dinner parties.

Hodgins men were of a rare breed. They were men of revolution, men of ingenuity, but more importantly men that brought on a new era of progress.

"What is on your mind love?" My companion muttered, rubbing my shoulder as if to tear me away from my thoughts. "I haven't seen you so ponderous since you received news of Ashley moving to speak with the Galdarik. What is it that troubles you, please tell me what it is that distresses you so, I will not have you-

"Oh hush dear one." I kissed her palm, every part of her very dear to me. "I am happy wife, happy husband, happy father."

On the ferry, taking us back to the port, her self-satisfied smile still warmed me, "happy you say, in every way?" I was not the only one proud of the fruits our children had harvested. "I know you are," she knew, "you smug old man. I should have known better, you are an insufferable when it comes to gloating. I'm surprised that your head fits through the door-"

"I am your man, wife, be kind with what you say."

"My man." She repeated warmly. "Indeed."

I tapped her hand that latched on my arm, our sun-weathered eyes marking the crystal blue shores and the city that had brought not only two people together, created a family of quite excellent sons, but brought two nations that would fight no more.

Not if I, Jamie Hodgins, had anything to say about.

Just wanted to write a little backstory to the Hodgins family. I made a few corrections according to your reviews. thank you love you all. Hope you enjoyed this companion piece of To My Beloved Major. This is going to be a one-shot, unless I think another story up for the father of Claudia Hodgins, I wonder if the TV show will ever show us his whole family, or the Bougainvillea family for that matter... hm, a girl can wish! I hope you guys are having a wonderful time, promise to update TMBM soon!

Love always,

Odeveca