Friday, January 13, 2023
Robin made wonderfully deep impressions on all the people who knew her. Years ago, when we were undergraduates at Appalachian State, I visited her at Leisure Acres, and she was reading Wind in the Willows to her younger sister, Tracie. At one point, Robin read a passage that describes a scene where Rat and Mole meet Pan while he's playing his pipes, Both of them fall under the spell of his music. They listen until Pan gets up to leave. And the two animals are momentarily stunned by what they've heard. But then a soft breeze brings them back to consciousness. After Robin read this scene, she stopped and reread the description: ". . . and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demigod is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the afterlives of little animals, in order that they should be happy and light-hearted as before." I'm sure that all of us who were lucky enough to spend time in Robin's company won't forget her, and we won't be as light-hearted knowing she has departed.
