Dear Zuehlke Family,

This has truly been a celebration of life. My heart breaks for your loss, for the end of Bob's magnificent time in this world, but I have come away feeling inspired and determined to live closer to his example. Surprisingly, I have learned from the beautiful stories about Bob that we had been in each other's vicinity long before we met in Hong Kong. I was experimenting with communal living in Michigan when he became an SGI member (I sure wish I had known him then). And I was one of those fife and drum corp members stranded in Central Park after the parade in 1976. I also considered a foreign service career in 1983 after graduating from SAIS in Washington DC, but I already had a child on the way and couldn't imagine taking time away from being that child's mother. I appreciate the warm support he gave to our district in Hong Kong, helping us find our strength as the English-speaking district. 

Thank you for sharing this memorial service. I wish you all continued love and joy as your family grows and the children clamor to hear the legendary stories of their beloved grandfather.

Sincerely,

Susan Nieh (with additional warm wishes from my children: Hamilton, Hannah and Hamish)

Thank you so much for this profoundly moving and uplifting celebration of Bob's life. I was so touched and learned so much. What a beautiful life and family.

Sincerely,

Jo Reed

Bob was deeply appreciated in my life as a teen learning to be a grown up. He always addressed me as a mature human, worthy of respect, while, at the same time, never being afraid to be funny and educational during our conversations. 

My condolences to his family and other friends. He will live on in our hearts and memories, always.

I met Bob at Jackson Community College at the start of the Fall Semester in 1969. The new campus had just opened. And, it was still the Summer of '69. It was the endless summer. We were hippies. Both Michigan State and U of M were on strike in protest of the Vietnam War. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, CSN&Y, and John&Yoko Lennon were the soundtrack of our lives. Bob was also a Moody Blues and Fire Sign Theater fan. Bob had graduated from Lumen Christie High School, Valedictorian Class of '69. So you know, he was the brightest light on the tree. He was also creative, and I remember his poem Sisyphus which was published in the JCC student journal. I won the purchase prize in a student exhibition, and I sometime wonder what became of that painting. By the Fall of 1970, I went off to Boston University.

When home on semester break, Bob stopped by and in the course of our conversation, he said that he had become a Buddhist. This was still quite hip, and in Boston, there were all sorts gurus about. He had this ornate shrine set up in his bedroom which struck me as rather Catholic; except that, the Torah-like scroll-mandala which it enclosed exhibited a complex patterned east asian ideogrammatic calligraphy. We chanted a mantra together for some time focusing on the mandala which I quite enjoyed. Afterward, Bob told me that he was also learning to play the saxophone. He promptly took it out of his closet and began squeaking and squawking. It wasn't rock and roll, it wasn't jazz, it was this corny kind of marching band music. That's nice, I said.

Thereafter the group of Jackson Buddhists grew. When home on summer or semester break, friends frequently stopped by to take me group chants. Bob had enrolled at Michigan State; if I remember correctly, this is where he met Yuko. He was soon to drop out because, as he told me, he felt his professors were arrogant and pretentious. Then, while working at the USPS, he aced his civil servant exam which launched a 45 year career, as he put it, working for Uncle Sam.

I had my Gojakai at Harvard University in March of '73 and lived in the first NSA Boston Chapter House on the campus of BU for five years. My wife Rachelle and I were married in 1981 by Reverend Shina at the Boston Culture Center in the Southend. By the mid '80's, we began exchanging Yuletide greetings with Bob, and his family news letters were posted from Zurich, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and DC. I apprenticed with sculptor Frank Gaylord in Vermont, and worked as a stone carver there for 10 year, before coming to Skylight Studios in Boston, where I have been for 25 years now.

Most memorable was our stay with the Zuehlke family in July of 2000. Kai, Eric, and Rob were just kids and my daughter Lainey was two weeks shy of being four. We all watched the spectacular Millennial Fourth of July Fireworks Display from the roof of the State House gratis Bob pere. I had not yet seen Frank's, Korean War figures in situ, nor had I been to the Smithsonian Museum. Such warm hospitality will always be remembered.

Bob stayed with us in Wilton, NH en route to St Albans where he was schooling border patrol on visa falsification. Some years later Bob and Rob visited us at Skylight Studios when Rob was enrolling at Boston University. In more recent years, Bob and I would talk on the phone periodically, and we even ZOOMED a few times. He confided that he had been having some health karma. I always have enjoyed the family photos that he posts on FB; and, I knew that he was going to the SGI Florida Nature Center with Kai, Eric, and Rob; It is truly auspicious and profound that they did so just prior to Bob's passing. Seeing the FB notice an hour after it was posted, I must say that it was quite unexpected; and I wrote the following:

For Jiyuno Bob on the News of his Passing

too soon, too soon

my old friend from the infinite past

time is an illusion and

illusions are enlightenment

soon we will meet again

old friend

on the summit

of Eagle Peak