I got the word early Wednesday morning from Cathy that Rob's conditioned had worsened, and he was going to die soon. I was able to speak words of gratitude and blessing over the phone to Rob as Cathy held it up to his ear, and he smiled. Lorie and I jumped on a plane and flew out to Reno, NV, that afternoon and met up with my other brother Bill who flew in from Atlanta. We arrived at midnight, 3 hours after Rob had passed. But we got to spend some time with him and reminisce and express our love before they took his body away. And we stayed on with Cathy for a couple of days and helped her make plans for the next steps before returning to Winston-Salem.
Several remarkable things happened the day Rob died. Earlier in the day, he kept pointing to the wall in his bedroom and said, “It’s amazing!” over and over. At one point, Cathy asked, “Do you see people?” He nodded yes, and then counted out the number 6 on his fingers. (I wonder who they were.) And just before he died, he sat up, opened his eyes and looked at Cathy, then laid back and breathed his last. He died very peacefully.
Last week I asked Rob if he had any fears about dying. He answered by saying, “I like what Woody Allen once said. When asked about it, he said, ‘I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’” We both laughed. Then he got more serious and told me, “I’m ready.”
My brother was a remarkable man in so many ways. Creative, caring, funny, genius, futurist, pioneer, musical, generous, loving, loyal, faithful, and faith-filled – these are some of the words I would use to describe him. He won an Emmy for a documentary he produced and directed in Atlanta back in the 1970s. He was on the ground floor of launching CNN back in the early 80s and became their first MIS director. He worked for Apple at their headquarters in Cupertino for a decade and was on the team that developed the Newton, a forerunner to the iPhone. Then he left the corporate world and returned to his original love and became an artist. He had a huge influence on my life.
One of the last paintings Rob did is one of my favorites. It’s called “Facing Death Valley.” Rob painted himself standing in the middle of Death Valley looking to the future. It’s dry and dusty and barren. It looks like the place has been in a drought forever. And there he is facing the future and the prospect of death, in a place without any water…with an umbrella in his hand! Now that’s faith! He believed good things were coming.
The day before he died he said, “I don’t know what it was like before I was born. And I don’t really know what it’s going to be like after I die. But I know it will be something, and I believe by faith it’s going to be great.” Rob looked forward to going home. But I’m sure going to miss him.
When a loved one dies, your faith becomes all the more real and all the more important to you. You find out what you really believe, and you discover whether or not your faith in Christ is strong enough to hold you. And you discover it is.
The last night Lorie and I were with Cathy and my brother Bill in Reno, I read to them an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’ book The Last Battle, which is the last of the seven books in his children’s classic series The Chronicles of Narnia. I want to share them with you, too. It speaks of our hope of heaven.
“And as [Aslan] spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
(notes from my journal ... )
A few weeks ago I sent Rob a email and tried Facetime but did not hear back ...
talking to a dead friend … thinking he was still around …
many lessons taught by this one … a computer like brain that tried to dumb down the explanations for plm's ( people like me )… sad I have forgotten 1/2 already …
talked with him in the cloud pict's I took last nite … happy to have shared with him some of this lifetime of moments … no wonder he did not FaceTime yesterday !
Life - a spark … shorter then we anticipate … afterglow lives on in others … 1/2 remembered jokes he told smiled at again … may his heavens be filled with video games and magnificent vista's
life is a spark
few understand it’s brevity
boom - flash
it is here
then gone
consciousness
awareness maybe
life takes many forms
to live is to die
Rob is a spark
in my life
on my mind.
guy with a camera and a flash …
flashing smiles and twinkle eyes
bad ( and good ) jokes always ready
talented teacher of many lessons,
for many
taught us well
chased his dreams
gave often to many
Artist of Merit
helper to us all
Rob Barnes and I met in college. We shared a faculty advisor and many interests. Past the things we had in common, we shared a sense of quest and search. What was the meaning behind it all? He was an encourager. He came to all of my theatre productions and sat in the front row. He proofread several philosophy papers for me. We shared friends, stories, cigarettes, visions, opinions, passions, songs, ideas, and many adventures.
Our friendship spanned the many years since then.
We kept in touch so that when I moved to Atlanta, we continued our many conversations, shared our friends and our circles and as well as many occasions for laughter. Rob was a very funny person - not from trying to be funny but funny from just being who he was. He was also a visionary who was moved by beauty and expression. He was an artist whose life was itself artistry.
We explored The-Church-That-Must-Not-Be-Named together.
I attended his 40th birthday party and still remember the invitation which included his pure conviction that “The Journey Is The Reward”
I knew that whatever twists and turns that our lives were taking that he always wished me well.
I think that we learn about friendships from our friends and by being a friend. We help, teach and encourage one another - and he was certainly that kind of friend.
He was on that short list of friends who, no matter how much time had elapsed, you could pick up where you had left off and they would understand exactly what you meant, and how you felt.
In all the years I knew him, I never heard him say a bad word about anybody.
He was a wonderful person to listen to music with. He would whip out his guitar and sing something wonderful, or play a record, with a big smile and, “Now - listen to this.”
He showed me a lot about taking a photograph, about listening, about trusting.
He came to my baby shower and brought software - before I had a computer or even knew what a computer was.
My story about Rob happened in College.
I felt out of my depth at FPC. Fascinated but fearful, I pushed the edges for myself as best I could, but was probably one of the students at the time least prepared for college and college life.
One spring day, walking back to my dorm, I encountered my friend Rob Barnes astride a brand new motorcycle. "Hey! I dare you to take this thing up over the Skyway Bridge and back!" Before I knew it, I was on the motorcycle, wearing flipflops, shorts and no helmet. Rob showed me how to give 'er the gas, and off I went.
In those days, the Skyway bridge was two lanes and no room at the edges whatsoever. No stopping on bridge. Not that I had remembered to ask Rob how to stop. Or how to start. Cursing myself, both silently and out loud, I drove as slowly as possible without tipping over. No one warned me about the fish-tail effect that the metal grating at the top of the bridge has on a two wheel vehicle either. White-knuckled and sweating, I crested the bridge and looked down across the bay towards Bradenton, both terrified and exhilarated. I got over to the other side, and went almost all the way to Annamaria Island before I got the nerve to turn around (slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y) and go back. Back on campus, Rob and others cheered me back as I faked insouciance.
As a metaphor for our friendship, I felt that Rob always challenged me to take my skills further. He dared me to do something that I had never done before because he knew that I could do it. He encouraged me because that was his nature. I like to think that we're still daring one another to get on that motorcycle and crest up over the bridge, and come back and tell the story.
I will always treasure Rob Barnes. He was truly a good man. I can barely believe that his time on Planet Earth is over. His vision and the evidence that he leaves behind of a life well lived is a wonderful legacy and inspiration. I truly deeply believe that life continues beyond death - and that one day we will see one another again and tell the story of it all.
