Dick's Strength

Over the last several years of Dick's life, we watched him go through more hospital stays than anyone should have to endure. Not just quick visits-- but long exhausting stays that tested both the body and the spirit.

There were so many years of injury and disease including Cancer (1980s) and Heart Disease, broken bones, neurological issues, mobility decline. Years of procedure after procedure, treatment after treatment, surgery after surgery. Often uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and always followed by difficult rehabilitation.

A visit with him in the hospital left you wondering how someone so worn down physically could still be so sharp, so steady and so determined to keep going. He'd light up to hear updates of family and friends, he rallied during visits.

It wasn't just that he endured those long days and nights, it was how he did it with the sense of dignity that never left him no matter what his body was going through. The strength Dick showed was real, quiet, and lived in the way he showed up again and again, day after day through setbacks and slow recoveries. It lived in his stubborn refusal to let illness and disability define him. He didn't draw attention to his suffering for the sake of attention.

But what stood out even more was his gratitude. Dick never took the help he received for granted whether it was the VA and all the health care it provided and paid for, a kind nurse, a helping hand from a CNA, neighbor or family, no matter how simple the act of care. He appreciated it deeply. He would say “thank you” not out of habit but because he truly meant it. (Even if his stubborn independence created some of his need for assistance!) And, even while he was the one being cared for, Dick always looked for ways to give back. A gift of his own possessions, a word of advice, encouragement or understanding. No matter how much he was going through, he still looked outward with love, with concern, with purpose.

Dick didn't talk much about the hard parts, but if you really knew him you saw that courage, that endurance, that incredible depth of character. Dick's life wasn't easy. He grew up in poverty, the 10th of 14 kids. He suffered many hurtful losses throughout life. He worked hard for everything he had. He said “Yes,” even when he’d rather say “No.” He coached, he cheered, he loved and, in the end, even as his body wore down, his spirit never did.

We will remember those hospital stays and difficult days not for the hardship but for the strength they revealed. We'll remember the nurses and caregivers who said, “he's so sweet.” We'll remember the way his eyes lit up when someone walked in the room, his long stories, and recollections. We'll remember the example he set; that quiet resilience is just as powerful as any speech or spotlight. And today as we say goodbye, we honor not only the long life he lived, but the way he lived it with strength, humility and love.

Theresa

Dick Robinson 1934-2025

Please excuse any errors. This is my memory of dad's story. ~Theresa

Our Uncle Dick

By Allen Robinson with input from my Siblings

All of us children of Clifford and Margaret Robinson, (in order myself, Paul, Jim, Connie, Michael, Mary, and Anne) had the great fortune of being members of a large immediate family (there were seven of us) as well an even larger extended Robinson family. We were able to get to know all our Dad’s brothers and sisters, as many of them lived in close proximity to us in the Hopkins, Minnesota area. By far the most colorful, and our favorite, was Uncle Dick. To us, he was larger than life. Never one to quietly shy away from any conversation, he always, with great enthusiasm, engaged in animated discussions on just about any topic, usually from the opposing position! This was especially true when it came to sports. If you weren’t sure of his opinion, give it a minute, he would tell you. And sometimes if you weren’t sure of your opinion, he would point it out to you!

We all looked forward to Saturday evenings at our house, for on several weekends, it meant Uncle Dick and his wife, Aunt Carol and daughter Theresa, would come to visit. That usually meant skillet grilled burgers and fries and Mom would relax the prohibition barring us kids from eating on the rickety TV trays in the living room with them. We would turn on the TV and watch the World’s only true sport, “Live, from the Calhoun Beach Hotel, All Star Wrestling”. Dick would provide his own version of blow-by-blow analysis and opinion of each the colorful characters and each match. Throughout the course of the evening, the inevitable disagreements on other sporting events would ensue and on more than one occasion, we would get a call from him later in the evening after he had called the Minneapolis Star and Tribune sports desk to confirm he was right.

All Star wrestling usually devolved into a mass of squirming kids on the living room floor, with Dick on the bottom, until Mom and Dad put a halt to it. After that it was Chiller Theater. Before the evening was over, Theresa would be sleeping on Mom and Dad’s bed while we continued our discourse with Dick. When I got older and we all went deer hunting, he and I were banned from hunting together by my Dad because we would get into spirited discussions while walking in the woods and alert the deer that there were skilled (not us two) hunters in the area.

Dick was present for a lot of our life’s adventures. He was there when Dad added on to our house. Personal and family crises and achievements. He coached us in baseball, me in particular, and patiently let me learn from experience that I was totally unqualified as an infielder and couldn’t hit my own backside with both hands. I found out many, many years later just how successful and accomplished he was in that arena from an umpire I met in Forest Lake at my wife’s 50th high school reunion who knew him. Dick was an accomplished coach at several levels, from Little League up thru Babe Ruth and American Legion ball and a bit of a legend across the state.

I visited him on occasion over the years, after he moved to Wausau, on my drive back to Ohio from Minnesota and in 2016 brought him a book on that year’s Major League Baseball Statistics. When I stopped to visit him in 2017, I saw the book on the table next to the couch and asked him if he had a chance to go through it. He told me he had read it cover-to-cover and had me quiz him about anything in the book. Of course he got all the answers right, expanding on each one. During my visits with him, we discussed his career in high school hockey, fast pitch softball (slow pitch was for the “less talented” I found out), football and he filled me in on the lives of all his siblings. Some very interesting stories, indeed. He was a huge Viking, Twins, North Stars, and Gopher fan and would disparage me when I reminded him I was a product of THE Ohio State University. I begrudgingly agreed; however, that I was still a Vikings fan, because after all, in Ohio we have the Browns.

Dick was a proud Army veteran and was stationed in Germany during his time in the service. If I remember right, he was part of the quartermaster corps which is responsible for providing materials and supplies to the troops. While there, he was stationed with Elvis Presley, which impressed the daylights out of me. We would swap war stories about his time in the Army and mine in the Air Force. He served his time, moved back to Central Minnesota, and eventually met his wife Carol and settled in the Hopkins area. In his final years, although his health was failing, his mind remained as sharp as ever and we would talk for hours about everything from sports to (dangerously) politics. He loved to tweak me by taking the alternate position in most of our discussions, even one-time which direction the sun came up. When Theresa told me that recently his health had taken a turn for the worse, I was hoping to get one more visit with him. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance.

He was a truly unique and special individual. An athlete, Veteran, husband, father, uncle, and coach, to me as well as my brothers and sisters. As I got older, although he was still my Uncle, he was also my friend. Through him, I was able to reconnect with my Cousin Theresa whom he depended on and who was his rock in his final days. Now, he is once again reunited with his loving wife, Aunt Carol to whom he was fiercely devoted. There is hole in my heart which I know time will heal, but until then I will sorely miss my visits with him and our in-depth discussions on sports, family, and life in general.