Richard Sewall Robinson III 1967-2023

Photo of Rick Robinson, 2009. A 42 year old White man with tanned skin, bald head, brown goatee and brown eyes. He's wearing a narrow blue-and-white striped polo shirt, blue jeans, and sandals. He's seated with his arms folded comfortably across his middle, seated in a green Adirondack chair with a pleasing look on his face.

My brother and I are complete opposites. Where I was the responsible older sister, Rick took risks—sometimes that was an understatement. Where I tend to be a tortoise, Rick was a jackrabbit. Sparky. Rocket.



Rick was larger than life and it started when we were children. In the slideshow there’s a photo of him when he was three with his grandfather’s pipe in his mouth.

Photo of me and Rick, ages 5 and 3.  Rick has a toothy grin and is holding a brown pipe between his teeth.  I am looking at my mother, who is taking the picture, with a straight face.

One Saturday morning when he was six years old, he was bored and cut off his eyebrows with some scissors. That not being enough excitement, he came into my room, put his face next to mine on the pillow, woke me with a start, and when I screamed he said, “Don’t be scared, it’s me, Ricky!” I can remember laughing when our mom had to use an eyebrow pencil on him before going to school.

That same year when he had to have his tonsils out, the anesthesiologist was about put Rick under, but he was laughing so hard they couldn’t put the mask on his face.

When he was a child, he would never submit to a vaccination willingly. I can remember one episode at the Naval Air Base in Weymouth where he darted around the exam table, ducking and avoiding both the nurse and the doctor.



So, you get the picture that Rick could also be quite mischievous.

It was Rick who discovered who Santa Claus was and ruined it for me.

He once unscrewed the cap off a tiny baby bottle that went with a doll of mine and he stuffed the little pink cap up his nose. Quite conveniently, our mom was a receptionist for an ear, nose, and throat doctor at the time, and I remember standing impatiently in the exam room, waiting to receive what was rightfully mine.

But one of the most Rick things Rick ever did when we were kids: my mother was helping me wash my hair in the bathtub one night when all of sudden she yelled “Aagh!!”, the familiar yellow Johnson & Johnson shampoo bottle in her hand. I said, “What? What is it?” She fumed and said, “Your brother peed in the shampoo bottle!”



His mischief extended to his knowledge of words and how to use them to his advantage. At the beginning of every year in high school we had to fill out a form for the guidance office with a space to indicate future career goals. Every year Rick left that space blank, which gave our mother some concern but his senior year he answered, “Petroleum Transfer Engineer”. Mom was ecstatic that he had finally declared some kind of career interest. Rick said, “Mom, it means I pump gas.”



Rick could solve problems like an engineer. My senior year I drove our great-grandmother’s 1967 Chevelle to school, along with Rick and Dan, a neighbor friend. One morning it felt like the car couldn’t get out of second gear, no matter how much I pressed on the accelerator. Both Dan and Rick were sitting in the back seat, with Dan seated directly behind me. Dan was wearing a pair of big, heavy Timberland boots. Rick looked at the floor where Dan’s feet were resting and said, “Dan, pick up your feet.” The car took off. The floor of the car was so rusted through that Dan’s feet were putting pressure on the emergency brake cable and slowing the car. The next day, Rick hauled the car into the high school auto shop and laid down a bunch of goopy fiberglass stuff and reinforced it with galvanized metal braces bolted into the surface.



He installed a sunroof in my 1987 Ford Escort. I made the mistake of coming outside to check his progress at the point when the hole had been cut in the roof but the window had yet to be installed. I looked at my car with shock and gasped, “Oh my God!” Rick turned around, saw my face, pointed and said, “Get back in the house and don’t come out again until I’m done!”



Rick was pretty easy going but he had his moods too. His last job before he moved to Tucson was at Bay State Blackboard in Quincy, MA, owned by a church friend of ours, Sean Mahony. Sean said you knew what mood Rick was in by the footwear he had on. If he was wearing the soft-soled running boots the Army issued him, you knew he was in a good mood. If he was wearing his steel-toed combat boots, you knew he was in a mood to kick butt and to stay out of his way.



The biggest obstacle Rick had to overcome was the death of our father on his 18th birthday. (Now there are two old men I’ll never get to know.) For some years Rick could not bring himself to celebrate his own life or hear the words “Happy Birthday”. He was angry at God and held a huge grudge. It wasn’t until a customer at Classic Hobbies gave him a copy Neale Donald Walsch’s book Conversations with God that he was able to make peace with the universe and with Dad.



Rather than an obstacle it became a challenge to grow. He started a group on Facebook called Spirit Club where he could share his truth and hold safe space for others to share theirs. Rick believed in the Oneness of all things, that we are all facets of Oneness, each of us having our own experience of what it means to be human. He believed in the power of Love to heal and to forgive, that it is possible to live without judgment or fear, and that each of us is different, all are needed, none of us are better or worse, all of us have purpose, and we are to be Light to one another.



My brother didn’t go to seminary; he lived his theology and his life ordained him. He didn’t have a church; he didn’t need one. Rather, he had a fellowship of friends he loved and who loved him. So many of you have reached out to me and our mom ready to do whatever needs to be done, offering yourselves, disrupting your lives for us. It was his relationship with the world around him that created the hope that surrounds me now.



Where my brother was larger than life, now he is larger than death itself. He is in every animal he was kind to. He is in every model build. He is in the trees, the grass, the desert earth he helped move. He’s in the sound of his laugh that still echoes in my mind. He’s in every one of you.



Rick was not afraid to die; he was afraid of not living to the fullest. He wrote in 2015: “I would like to explain to you what I know of "death". We are the Soul not the body, this is just the Soul experiencing itself as a body. When you are done with this portion of your experience you move on to the next one. It's perfectly natural, it is sad, the person is Missed in the physical, but at the same time it is Joyous as far as I'm concerned, that person Did it, they stayed the course, rode the rides, shared the Love they Experienced while Physical and then went Home. … Think of this this World -your Life is like the Greatest Restaurant in the Universe! The place is pretty cool, the staff is nice, the food is Great, the bill is reasonable, it's All Great, and when you're done with your meal and your entertainment...you go Home and Rest and plan Your next Adventure. Re-Creating your Self in the next Greatest version of the Grandest Vision you have ever held of your Self. I hope you En-Joyed that. Namaste!”



Namaste, brother. I love you.

My three favorite photos of my brother and me, taken in August 1986 before I headed back for my senior year in college and my brother left for S. Korea as a private in the Army. He is wearing a black t-shirt and jeans and has a high-and-tight haircut.  I am wearing an Amy Grant concert t-shirt, pink bandana around my neck and jeans. I have short curly brown hair. We're both smiling and laughing.  He's 19 and I'm 21.