In a sense, Ronald Hubble died twice – first as a boy, when a devastating car accident left him disabled with an altered personality, and again on Sept. 30, at age 33, when he was fatally injured by another car as he crossed a busy intersection.
“I really believe my son’s life was taken when he was 9, because there were so many changes afterward in his personality and nature,” said his mother, Jeanne Jackson.
“This time, I believe he got his wings.”
Little Ron Hubble had been a fairly typical boy, and only 16 months separated him from his younger sister, Lisa. Inseparable when they weren’t at each other’s throats, they often were mistaken for twins. They played football, wrestled, and competed against each other in bicycle and foot races.
“During relays and races and track and stuff, we’d be a team, and beat everybody,” Lisa Hubble Amys recollected.
“We competed against one another as well, but we had a really good connection. After the accident, I knew it wasn’t really my brother in there. We just never really connected again.”
Following the accident, Hubble spent nearly two months in a coma. “But then, the little son of a gun pulled through,” Jackson said.
Hubble spent months at a rehabilitation facility where he learned to walk, talk, toilet himself and “do all that stuff we take for granted,” his mother said.
Yet his mental and emotional development remained those of a preteen boy. “He was very much of a 9-year-old spirit in a 33-year-old man’s body,” his mother said.
Hubble never missed a chance to dress in costume for Halloween, his favorite holiday. One year, Hubble delighted himself by dressing in drag, assembling an appalling outfit that any self-respecting cross-dresser would eschew.
“He won the funniest costume award that year when he dressed as a woman,” Amys said. “A scary woman.”
When Hubble felt discouraged, he found solace in religion. He attended Miracle Mountain AME Zion Church, whose members took turns driving Hubble to and from services.
One Sunday, Hubble waited in the car with Miracle Mountain congregant Ralph Mills’ infant granddaughter as Mills went into an apartment building to pick up another church member. Suddenly, a man tried to break into the car, evidently intent on grabbing the baby.
Hubble slammed down the door locks and yelled for Mills and the police.
“I believe he prevented a kidnapping,” said Mills, who spotted the potential kidnapper running away. “He was a good man, and I’m gonna miss him.”
Besides his mother and sister, survivors include stepfather Jim Jackson of Evergreen; stepsisters Laura Standford of Aurora and Katrina Jackson of Somerset, England; and stepbrothers Jeremy Jackson of Lakewood and James Jackson of Aurora. His father, Ronald Hubble, died in a car accident.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
