Robin Eric Mittenthal

life story

Robin's life was full of light, air, and compassion.

He loved being of service to others and helping them find answers to their own questions, and guidance towards their own aims. He loved in equal measure being outside: planting and harvesting food, working the earth, observing the natural world. Throughout his life, he sought a balance between these two passions of nurturing others and the earth. To us, his family, he gave everything: unconditional love and devotion, and all his energy. He was the father, husband, and son one could only dream of. He had so many gifts that anything we say about him is only a pale reflection of who he was. We remember him with love and gratitude. In Robin's honor a GoFundMe page has been set up. All of the proceeds of this campaign will go to savings accounts that Robin established for Costa and Lia. : In Honor Of Robin-GoFundMe [more]

The opportunity to know Robin has been one of our greatest life gifts

Robin gave people the benefit of the doubt—whether it was an impossible to believe story, or less than best behavior. He believed that people are inherently good. He’d cock his head, smile and listen, his expression saying, OK, tell me your story. He put strangers at ease and won them over.

He was a take-action guy. If something was ethically or morally wrong he got involved. Environmental. Discrimination. Oppression. He saw. He hear. He acted. He couldn't stomach cruelty.

He had no need to have more than another, or to get ahead of others. He wanted to share what he had. He told us once that he didn’t ever want to be rich, because he didn’t want to spend his time protecting his wealth from others.

Knowledge was a deep love and he wanted to share it freely with everyone. He accepted wherever a person was intellectually and offered information.

Robin also knew how to use his brilliance for fun. Song! Bursting into lyrics, or making up jingles absolutely apropos for the situation, entertaining the farm crew and keeping morale high.

His mind was a recorder. If he heard a song once, he could whistle and sing it at will and did. I have a particularly entertaining memory of Robin singing, Counting Flowers On The Wall. It was so completely out of character to imagine him playing solitaire till dawn with a deck of 51, smoking cigarettes, and watching Captain Kangaroo.

His voice was as him, larger than life—no need for a microphone. Our son, Maize, first called him the giant, then the whistling giant as he could be heard from all corners of the farm whistling happiness while he drove tractors, and then the gentle giant as Maize grew to know and love him.

Often Martin and I would be in the field and come upon Robin’s footprints. They were huge, sunk deeply into the soil. His presence was so strong. We used to tease him that he caused soil compaction.

But the truth is, a larger-than-life man had come through the farm and our lives. Robin came to our farm as an employee and quickly became part of our family. We never imaged Robin would become an ancestor before us.

The opportunity to know Robin has been one of our greatest life gifts—to be influenced by him, learn from him, laugh and sing with him, share with him. Reliving these memories of our gentle giant, we are again challenged to be kinder, more conscientious, engaged, joyful, and generous humans.