Jafari and Robin: Lessons in Death but Mostly Life

I first met Robin Haymon on January 30th, 1999. We were sitting in a room together upstairs in his grandmother’s house in Homewood, an area in the City of Pittsburgh. Robin, a 13-year-old boy at the time, was playing video games, talking with me and sharing his thoughts and feelings about his brother, Jafari, who we had just buried in a cemetery in Homewood at the age of 24. Jafari’s family honored my friendship with their lost son, grandson, brother, nephew, and cousin by extending me the privilege of serving as one of Jafari’s pallbearers. I was one of the handful who was asked to carry Jafari to his final resting place. It was a day that elicited some of the most powerful emotions I’ve ever felt. It was a day packed with almost all of the life lessons I want all of my students who study under my principalship and my own children and step children to learn. The story seems more important than ever to share as it now has taken on an even deeper purpose today, 21 years later, as Robin joined his brother in death on May 25, 2020. 

Robin Haymon: A Special Kid Who Grew Into a Great Man

As a school principal, I can tell you that the age of social media has challenged our schools with a modern-age medium for bullying and harassment that didn’t used to exist. As a man grieving the Haymon family’s loss of their second son, I will tell you that I’m thankful for Facebook. 

Several years after I last saw Robin on the day we laid his brother in his final resting place, Robin and I reconnected. I noticed a message notification one day on my Facebook account from Robin Haymon, nicknamed “Sir Robin,” by his friends and family. Robin reached out to me to confirm I was the same person who carried his big brother whom he adored and admired to rest. He wanted to know if I was the same person who he remembered talking with him for more than an hour in the upstairs bedroom in his grandmother’s house in Homewood. We spent the next 15 years or so remaining in touch. We shared a deep love and hole in our hearts from Jafari’s loss and formed our own friendship as a result. I remember how much Jafari loved his little brother and wanted to look after Robin as much as I could from afar. I remembered Robin as the young 13-year-old who was trying to figure out how to overcome losing his big brother who had the personality the size of a planet and naturally impacted all of those he met in a positive way. 

As I followed Robin’s life as he grew into a man himself, I noticed how much he was JUST like his big brother. If only ALL parents could do the job that Dr. Elmer Haymon and Dr. Darlene Haymon Currie did with their children. From my periodic conversations with Robin and from keeping up with his Facebook posts and his friends’ posts about him, I noticed that Robin was very much the life of the party. Post after post reflected Robin’s authentic sense of humor, his love for people and ALL people, his quirky fixation on Star Wars, his strong commitment to his work as a manager at Apple Inc., and his overall passion for life. Robin, who lived near Richmond, VA, never let go of his love for Pittsburgh sports teams and once said, “Always rep the city that is instilled in your core.” 

Robin’s computer screen saver had this quote from Star Wars: “There is no death, there is the force.” When scrolling through Robin’s Facebook page post mortem, it is abundantly clear that Robin LIVED his life. Robin changed peoples’ lives around him with his positive energy and zest for enjoying every day. Robin made people who knew him better and brought emotions of pleasure and happiness to his friends. Robin modeled how to live and not just exist. Robin modeled leadership in the sense that so many have expressed thanks for his contributions to making their lives better. 

When reading through Robin’s Facebook profile recently, I saw that he listed, “Jay” as his nickname. I only knew Robin as Robin up until his peaceful death in his sleep on May 25th. But I knew another Haymon whose friends referred to as, “Jay.” 

Jafari Haymon: My Brother and a Spirit that Changed my Life Forever

I’ve served as a school administrator for the past 13 years. Before that, I taught high school English and throughout much of my career in education I coached high school basketball.   Along the way, I have shared Jafari’s story with thousands of students and players, simply because he was truly unforgettable and his impact on those who knew him remains in our minds in such a vivid manner that it often feels like yesterday that he was still with us. Jafari, often called, “Jay,” by his friends and by his little brother Robin, died in January of 1999 of a rare form of cancer that before detected managed to spread too rampantly through his body for doctors to defeat.

Jafari was 24 when he passed, already a college graduate and a young man who held a master’s degree in business administration. A master of martial arts and a former college basketball player, Jafari literally changed rooms when we entered. He stood about 6-foot-3 and carried, or more accurately strutted, a chiseled, intimidating frame into any area he stood. Jafari had a unique voice, one that boomed and was always distinct in any crowd. His voice exuded the confidence he lived his life with. There was NOTHING that Jafari didn’t believe he could accomplish. His voice, the sparkle in his eyes, his presence and the passion he spoke and acted with every second of every day spread to those who knew him easier than the common cold spreads from one first grader to another. His friendship, brotherhood, and his death taught me as much as any other experience I’ve encountered in my 48 years on this earth. 

 Bond Formed Through Competition and Attitude

I first met Jafari in a gym. I had just begun my master’s degree program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) to pursue my dream of becoming an educator, didn’t know anyone at IUP yet, and shooting hoops and competing in pickup basketball games was my happy place. My escape from anything stressful. I was alone at one end of the gym and feeling my stroke from three-point range. I heard a voice from the other end of the gym asking if I wanted to play. There were only three people in the gym at that time – Jafari, his girlfriend, Jill, and me. The challenge of beating this highly athletic looking guy might intimidate others, but at that time in my life as a 27-year-old graduate student who worked out religiously and was just cocky (and dumb) enough to believe I was usually the best basketball player in the gym, I smiled and looked forward to embarrassing him in front of his girlfriend. It ended up a best of three series of one-on-one basketball. Jafari clearly underestimated me as I was four inches shorter than he was and although in shape I didn’t share his 235-pound frame that only seemed to hold muscle. I called the rule for three pointers to count for two points and two-point field goals to count as a single point as he told me I could have the ball first and that we would play make-it-take-it. I got hot, Jafari didn’t believe I would continue to bury shots from NBA three-point range, and I won. I also ran my mouth because that’s who I was at the time. Needless to say, Jafari allowed me to talk smack after the obvious upset for all of two seconds before drilling me in the chest with the ball and telling me to, “run it back.” Jafari demanded a best-of-three so he could win the day, he smothered me no matter how deep I was behind the three-point line, and he turned his offensive attack into a physical mauling that left me sore for days. But I battled and never gave up or stopped trying to hold my ground and keep him from backing me down in the post. Out of smack talk, similar attitudes and competiveness, and a physical war, a deep friendship was born. 

 Warriors…Come out to Play

Jafari’s favorite movie was, “The Warriors.” Like Robin’s affinity for, “Star Wars,” Jafari had an eccentric side to him. Ironically, “The Warriors,” a classic 1979 film with a cult-like following, was a movie I was very familiar with and had watched many times with my brother, Jeff, growing up. The word, “Warrior,” took on a serious meaning for Jafari, however. He often used the term when talking with his closest friends about life, when offering advice, and when reminding himself of how to embrace challenges. 

 Jafari and I had many conversations about what the term, “Warrior,” meant to him. He defined it conceptually as someone who never backs down from any challenge, someone who maintains a self-confidence and belief regardless of how daunting a challenge might seem, someone who perseveres in the face of adversity to stand up for what is right no matter the pressure to fall in line with the majority opinion. Jafari used the term, “Warrior,” to bring a focus to his life and to the lives of those he loved. He had the confidence to always be himself, to be authentic and transparent, to stand for what matters and is right. And he had no problem challenging his friends to do the same. When he would ask, “Are you being a warrior?” it didn’t just mean competing on a basketball court. It took on a meaning of how we approach our lives, our relationships, our work, our passions, and our contributions to society. A life not lived like a, “Warrior,” wasn’t a life lived at all. 

 Funeral Turned Celebration

When I drove to the church to attend Jafari’s funeral and to carry my friend to his final resting place, I was beyond anxious and depressed. I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face as I drove from my mother’s house in Castle Shannon to the Baptist church where the Haymons worshipped. I had lost my father four years earlier, and my experience with death was insurmountable sadness, frustration, and even anger. But that all changed on January 30, 1999 at that Baptist church and at Jafari and Robin’s grandmother’s house in Homewood. 

As the service progressed, I transitioned from looking down at the floor just trying to make it through the day to picking my head up and being unable to look away from the speakers at the podium. One after another, people close to Jafari shared their favorite stories involving their time with him. They laughed, they shared life lessons like that of being a, “Warrior,” and one, Ramon Riley, who I had never met, even imitated Jafari’s unique voice almost identically as he told his favorite Jafari memories while implanting the Jafari voice as needed for story illustration. We all – everyone in the church – smiled and laughed and cried. We celebrated Jafari’s short but amazing life and impact on us all.

When we drove to Jafari’s grandmother’s house to have a meal together, share more Jafari stories, and mourn together, his family taught me more about being a, “Warrior.” Jafari’s family compelled us all to celebrate the time we had with him, cherish our memories, and his grandmother told me something I never forgot. She said, “Take whatever you think were Jay’s best qualities and make them part of who you are.” What began as one of the worst mornings of my life ended as a day that made me a better person and changed the way I would forever view death. Even in death, Jafari was helping me to work to be a, “Warrior.” I also added another close life-long friend and brother. With obvious influence from Jafari somehow, when I got my first teaching job at Pine-Richland High School, I heard a voice from around a corner with a tinge of Jafari’s rare tone. I quickly walked around the corner as if chasing ghost, and once Ramon and I remembered each other, we both smiled realizing that somehow we were both teachers at the same school after only ever meeting each other once – as mutual pallbearers at Jafari’s funeral. Ramon and I have maintained our friendship for all of these years, sometimes asking each other, “What would Jafari do?” when either of us have encountered challenges in our lives.

 Jafari and Robin: A Shared Love for ALL People

When I scroll through Robin’s Facebook page, I notice something that reminds me very much of Jafari’s funeral. Robin’s photos reflect the same pattern that his big brother followed in choosing friends. I see white people, black people, people of different ethnicities, males, females, and people of varying ages and with widespread interests. People who attended Jafari’s funeral looked the same as Robin’s Facebook page. Jafari and Robin loved people. ALL people. They sought friendships with people who had kind hearts, a passion for life even if their interests were different from their own, and the only pattern that seemed to exist in their choices of friends seemed to be the quality of character a person possessed. Jafari and Robin loved people from all walks of life. 

They both remind me of my father, who passed suddenly and unexpectedly in 1995, in one of the most important ways. All three of them lived their lives with the belief system expressed in this quote from Henry David Thoreau, which was my father’s favorite: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears however measured or far away.” 

Ask Yourself: WWJORD What Would Jafari or Robin Do?

I’ve learned the hard way that the good really do die young sometimes. My father passed in 1995 at 55, Jafari died in 1999 at 24, and Robin is now gone in 2020 at 34. As I grow older, it has become even more important to me to remember the people who have made the biggest impacts on my life, my mindset, and my belief system. Jafari and Robin lived life with confidence, dreams, goals, work ethic, passion, and love. I challenge students and educators and people to reset their belief system and do the same every day. Love ALL people. And live life.