I have the honor of writing something today that I have never had to write before: the eulogy of a fine woman who passed on well before what most of us would consider to be a full lifetime. I'm going to take this opportunity to praise her life, and to memorialize the parts that I was involved in, as best I can.
In 1973, when I was a very youthful 22 years of age, I was playing bass guitar in a glorified garage band with some friends, one of whom, our drummer, was dating a young lady named Robin, who was 18 and a senior in our local high school at the time.
Dave, the drummer, would bring Robin to our rehearsals and "gigs" occasionally, and I had the chance to get to know her, and like her, very much. So much in fact that finally, after a job we had played at a local Holiday Inn one early summer's evening that year, where she had come with David to hear us play, she went home with me. (It was okay: she and Dave were ready to go their separate ways anyway.)
We spent a great deal of time together that summer and fall, getting to know each other and learning to love each other, and early in 1974, she moved in with me, in my tiny, one-bedroom apartment on the west side of Joliet, just a few blocks from her family's home, and eventually we got married in June of '74.
I remember a lot of fun times, picnics, and softball games, going to the zoo and mostly, just being together; she had a great smile, and she was very pretty, and although her childhood had not been a good one, and had left many emotional scars which I tried, in my own fumbling way, to help her deal with, we were happy.
I remember how much she loved to dance; I remember how much music was a part of her life. I remember how much we enjoyed being together.
We worked, and we lived, and in 1977, after a very uncomfortable pregnancy for Robin, our daughter was born. We were, like most young parents, unsure at first about what to do with this small human we had brought into the world, but as time passed we grew into our roles as mom and dad. Kristina was an easy and happy baby, and we were a unit of three.
But as is so often the case with folks who marry very young, we grew up together, and in doing so, we grew apart. No one's fault, just a changing of who we were as people, a changing of directions as it were.
After I left, in 1982, our contact with each other, necessarily, was only occasioned by the dictates of raising our daughter together. There were some conflicts, and it was sometimes unpleasant.
Robin finally found her "soulmate", her husband Steve, a number of years after the divorce, and I know from the things she told me, many years later, that she found the happiness with him that she had been searching for all her life. I will tell you that, in my most secret moments, I often regretted not having been able to be that person to her.
She had, as I said, a difficult pregnancy with Kristina, but for all of that, it was many years later, at least for me, before we realized that she was already ill at that time with the disease that eventually ruined her life and hastened her departure to Heaven at such an early age.
The disease she had contracted was Chiari Malformation, and if the name doesn't sound familiar, it should be no surprise, for it is a rare condition. I'll skip the statistics about how many in 10,000 are afflicted, survival rates, etc., but suffice to say that it is no day in the park.
Through my daughter, I kept up with Robin's courageous fight against her illness, through the various treatments and surgeries and what apparently was unrelenting pain, over a period of many years. She was too sick to work, too sick to go out much and too sick to enjoy the life that she deserved. Her world became relegated to Steve, my daughter, her friends that she had made online who also had Chiari, and, mostly, to her God, because during the course of her fight, she had become a staunch Christian and a lover and follower of Jesus Christ.
I had not seen Robin for many years, having nothing more than very occasional email contact, so when I saw her at my daughter's wedding back in '05, I was taken back with how her disease had affected her. She was still a very attractive woman, but the Chiari was obviously taking its toll. At the time she was not quite 50, and looked much older.
We began exchanging Christmas cards every year, and as I said, through Kristina, I kept up with her ongoing physical battle. It was clear to all who knew her, that the disease, and the attendant other physiological problems, continued to exact a steep price.
Just recently, after Kristina had shared with her Mom my moment of salvation, I received a Facebook message from Robin, telling me, with great joy, how pleased she was that I had finally found God and accepted Jesus as my Savior. It was clear that she was thrilled for me, and I have to tell you, it touched my heart.
We began to correspond, through emails and FB messages, about once a week, talking about God's place in our lives and how being a Christian affects what we do. Despite how sick she had become, to the point where, at times, her sentences were confused and garbled, she was always cheerful and always tried to lend me great strength, with her encouragement and her praise.
She commented several times how much she liked some of my posts from "the Pope", and how that she had urged a number of her friends to read what I had written, because she felt the message was important. She shared with me her desire to one day write a book chronicling her battle with Chiari, and told me of the times when she fought despair by turning to God.
Robin passed away yesterday, 2/29, at the age of 56; too soon, and in too much pain. Although I roundly hate the cliché that is so often times used under these circumstances, that "she's better off now", in this instance, I truly believe she is, indeed, better off.
She's no longer suffering, and I will tell you with all that is in me, if this brave woman is not in Heaven, seated at the right hand of her God, than the rest of us have no chance whatsoever to ever gain eternal peace.
I can think of no one else that I have ever known in my life who more deserved Heaven than she.
I was teasing her, just last week, in an email, that the 30th anniversary of our divorce would be the 6th of December, 2012, and if it hadn't been for our going our separate ways, she would have never found Steve, and that they both "owed me one". Even though we had been apart for all those years, she was still, and will always be, a significant part of my life.
She was my friend and, for a time, my partner, as well as the mother of the most beautiful person I know, and in her own way, one of the most courageous, decent people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.
The world is a lot less today for her passing, and truly, I will miss her.
Thank you, God, for Robin; she was one of Your true servants. Thank you for her life, and my part in it.
"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die'". John 11:25-26
Yours in Christ,
PJTT
copyright 2012 Krissongs, Inc.
