DEAR ROBIN, WHILE YOU WERE AWAY….

Robin with his heartbeat Nikki

Hey Kiddo,

The other day a friend of mine mentioned her daughter’s pixie ears and I just started laughing. We all know who the King of pixies was! I remembered the way you were a butt of many a jokes some of which you came up with yourself. The specific ones that made me laugh this time were how it turns out, you had the ability to effortlessly light a ‘jiko’ by only moving your head side to side a few times. No wonder you were this nice guy that everybody loved (I’ll get to that later) but could it be it was because you were afraid of the windstorm effect if you dared shook your head to say no…. hmmm! The other personal favorite of mine was how apparently, you had it easy in your career of choice. Flying. One of your friends even considered it safest to fly with you because in the unfortunate event that the engines failed, First Officer Robin would simply ‘flap and flap’ the aircraft to safety – disaster averted! The other day, I spent a day with your girls and thank God the little one -- mini you, pixie ears and all -- is too young otherwise she could have pointed out how auntie F. is too coo-coos for her liking! The entire day I alternated between staring at her innocent sassy young self and giving her suffocating hugs, seeing that she is just an extension of you. We really thank God for them.

I thought I should update you on what has been going on while you were away. Oh and before I do that, I see you carried with you your sense of humor. How do I send you a lovely heartfelt message on your 28^th birthday telling you how you are destined for great things ahead, such that even the world will not be ready for you…. and what did you do? Took it literally and exactly a month later you checked out. I can almost see you laughing and teasing me how the joke is all on me. Unlucky for you I have a lifetime to come up with an awesome come back, lucky for you it won’t be any time soon…. I pray. Still, some day we shall settle that score.

But seriously while you were away, you taught many of us that you do not have to be a public figure, or hold certain positions in the society, or be of a certain age or have so much wealth to leave behind a great legacy. More than ever before, we now understand that charity does indeed begin at home…. the area of influence around you that God has given you. This is especially very comforting to any grieving family. Kiddo, to say we were overwhelmed by the love and support from friends and family during that dark period of our lives is an understatement. In only three, 2-hours ad hoc burial planning meetings YOU were able to raise funds that many, well in advance planned for, fundraisers only aspire of. You must have been a true friend because your friends, gave, gave and then gave some more… even when we announced that we had raised enough to cover the budget, they still gave. Even after the burial, they still continued giving! And it wasn’t only financially, their time too. They have walked with us every step of the journey, others even taking time to visit and condole with mum and dad, even thought they had never met them before. They say it is the least they can do. People speak of how kind and generous you always were. Many say of how you had helped them get to where they were. That you were a role model, and even though you fell short sometimes and made your mistakes, you were great person. It is very humbling. And speaking of friends, two of them gave very memorable tributes at the burial. The first one was purely comical even though I doubt the speaker deliberately meant it that way. Not even the saddest soul around could hold back laughter -- too bad most of us couldn't understand the much coded language, but still the delivery was priceless. Since the tribute was given by a fellow pilot friend who was in uniform, am not sure I can ever again take any man in that uniform seriously….. kind of the way I never used to take you very seriously :) Then your former roommate, gave a speech too. He was like our final script of you, he spoke your heart, said things only someone who was close to you and had spent enough time with you would know about our family. It was bitter sweet, and got most people wet-eyed. Both speeches reflected your life, being deep when it called for it, otherwise making everyone laugh. We loved both speeches much!!

In other news, while you were away…. nothing changed politically. Wait, no that is not quite right. Things changed, but in the same old ways. JS aka Baba Deno is back in the public scenes…. ha ha ha no silly, it is not about siring more children in hotel rooms. All those older peeps that were in the former, former government who we all thought were blissfully enjoying retirement, having a great time with grand kids and all, have been called back to serve in some very lucrative positions in our public offices. The powers that be probably felt that we the youth are not quite ready for such positions. After all the youth are the leaders of tomorrow. We needed some well marinated chaps. But actually, come to think of it not aaaaaall of them are old, there is a young local musician who rumor has it that his sudden massive wealth was neither from an inheritance nor a get-rich-quick multi-level marketing biz nor from his copyrights, stage appearances, endorsements etc. Just a rumor. This young man has been mandated to watch that people, especially the youth –- leaders of tomorrow -- do not abuse drugs. Some people say that there is a lot of irony in that appointment, I am not sure why and cannot help but wonder if it has something to do with the rumor. Maybe.

While you were away guess what…. our wonderful team, Chelsea, won the Barclays Premier League well before end of season. I have not stopped doing my jig since then. Well, but as you know there are haters out there, they are always there waiting to rain on your parade. So now some ‘other teams’ are circulating a chart showing that in the history of the teams that have won most English League Titles, we rank 7th with only 5 titles compared to the top team that has won 20. They even dare add that if we work harder we might even catch up with Sunderland, yes Sunderland, at numero 6 with 6 titles. Oh and by other teams, I know you know who are these fans I am talking about. That is right….. that has not changed either, they are still noisemakers. Wounded noisemakers. This was sadly not a great season for them, at all.

There you go, I thought I jot you some updates seeing that you were among the top fans of this blog.... nothing to do with marriage, but a special tribute to a kid bro we will never stop loving and missing! The heart ache has been excruciating, and am speaking as a seasoned 'heart-breakee' seeing that I have been down that road several times because of relationships gone sour, before the heavens had mercy and sent me my wonderful Hun. All in all God, the balm of Gilead, has been very good to us, through it all. His grace has been sufficient. Tears are slowly fading. We are beginning to notice the sunshine once more, we are smiling and laughing more even. We are taking one day at a time. 

To all those who have walked and continue to walk with us, thank you! God bless you and may He remember every kind word, thought, prayer, act, coin and repay you 10 fold.

Stars don’t struggle to shine, you are a star Robin -- may you shine forever.