Vegas 
Rob Bob Bobby
Coincidences?
Vegas Rob Bob Bobby
From three out of the five couples that we mostly spent time with on our tour group, the men shared Bobby's name. They were Rob (and Shirley) from California, Robert (and Joanne) from Ottawa, Canada, and Larry Robert (and Claire) from New York.
Larry joined Claire in England... coming from work in Korea (Bobby's birthplace). Near the end of our tour, after becoming friends, I told Larry about Bobby's death and that I was scattering his ashes all over the places we were visiting. I asked him a favor to help me with this task also, and to take some ashes with him back to Korea to scatter there too, back in the land of his birth. He immediately agreed to help.
Many thanks Larry!
Without planning or counting as I went along, it turned out that Bobby's ashes were scattered in 24 unique locations, including Korea... to coincide with Bobby's age of 24 years when he died. Or, if you count Stonehenge twice because we were there on two separate days and scattered ashes on both days, then the count increases to 25. It was planned to scatter some ashes at a special access tour (inside the circle) at Stonehenge at sunset on Aug. 19th... which with the time difference was the morning of Aug. 20th in Korea... which would have been Bobby's 25th birthday.
Click here to see all the locations where his ashes were scattered.
In a shop in York, I bought a coaster and keyring that both state:
Robert
ROB, BOB
From the Old English meaning "bright flame".
Good natured, friendly and outgoing with a great sense of humour.
He has great energy.
As you may know, Bobby loved flames, which is why I use them as a sort of theme for these web pages. Before going to England, the family had picked out a headstone for him that will use a custom design with two candles to represent his love for flames, and we had also settled on using a verse, "The brightest flame burns quickest" from a Metallica song.
So this coaster and keyring definition blew me away! I couldn't hardly believe it! And after returning from vacation, I had to go research that some more on the Internet. And the funny thing is that the coaster/keyring is apparently wrong! All I could find gives the definition of Robert as, "bright fame" (not flame) and other variations such as "fame bright" (the correct order from the word stems), "famous" and "shining".
Well, no matter. The coincidence is still just as real for me, if not even more so! How odd can it be to find even one shop selling these trinkets with the wrong definition, that is so definitely --- BOBBY!
Click here to see a pic of the coaster. (34 KB)
Finally, taking the bus to Heathrow Airport on our last morning, they played a tape from the tour company with instructions for our departure, etc. The tape went on for the whole bus ride, but before it started there were a couple of songs played on the radio. The first, in full, was "Father and Son"... the Cat Stevens song which is very special to me. This version was not by Cat Stevens, and I didn't hear who performed it... but it was still another coincidence to me, one of the many coincidences that really seemed to tell me that Bobby was with us, and that he was okay.
(Back to Rob's main page)
