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By BOB NOCEK bobn@leader.net
Friday, February 04, 2000 Page: 1A
On the day after Mountaintop teen Christopher Robinson lost his fight
with AIDS, those who knew him recalled his enduring battle against the disease
and its stigma.
“He only lived 18 years. But the impact he had on so many people, anyone
living to be 100 could only hope to achieve,” said Bill O’Boyle, chairman of
the board of directors of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northeastern
Pennsylvania.
Robinson, 18, died Wednesday evening at Geisinger Medical Center in
Danville from a bacterial infection related to AIDS.
He lived and died in the public eye after revealing his AIDS infection in
the Times Leader series “Christopher’s Secret” in August 1995. In the years
after the series began, he spoke out frequently, urging others to educate
themselves about AIDS and preaching compassion for those infected.
In 1996, he spoke to 1,000 people at the Wyoming Valley’s first AIDS walk,
and he later traveled to London to make educational appearances with a group
from the Safe Haven Project, a Massachusetts-based organization dedicated to
helping children with AIDS.
“He took what was handed to him and he made the best of it at all times,”
said Tony Lombardi of Safe Haven. “He was always committed to trying to end
the cycle (of AIDS) through prevention and awareness, by letting people know
what it was like to be a teen living with HIV.”
Throughout the day Thursday, Safe Haven staff called Christopher’s friends,
from its annual camp for children with AIDS, to break the news.
“He was genuine,” Lombardi said. “He didn’t really expect anything in
return, except for someone to be his friend.”
Robinson’s death, which was sudden and unexpected despite his illness,
shocked many who knew he had survived several serious infections last year and
become well enough to return to school.
At Crestwood High School, his classmates honored Christopher with a moment
of silence and a flag lowered to half-staff. In May 1997, Robinson addressed a
crowd of 600, many his closest friends, in the Crestwood auditorium. He and
Joey DiPaolo, a New York teen who also has AIDS, answered tough questions and
tried to put their peers at ease with an uncomfortable subject.
“He was a model of bravery and commitment,” said Crestwood High School
Principal James Storm. “His courage – that’s what was his greatest impact,
and what’s going to remain behind.”
At the Wyoming Valley AIDS Council office on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre,
calls poured in from saddened clients and friends.
“We have clients 50 years old asking, `Why couldn’t it have been me?,’ ”
said AIDS Council caseworker Allison Cave. “It was unexpected for a lot of
people. My heart is breaking for his family. Chris was their life.”
Christopher was a hemophiliac and needed injections of the clotting agent
his blood lacked. His mother, Dawn Rebarchak, learned in 1982 that
Christopher’s blood had tested positive for HIV.
Christopher was told when he was 9 years old, and his family kept the
infection a secret until the newspaper series began.
After that, Christopher would talk about AIDS to anyone who would listen.
On WKRZ-FM Thursday morning, disc jockeys Rocky Rhodes and Sue Barre
recalled 13-year-old Christopher’s appearance on their show just days after
his story first appeared in the Times Leader.
“His mother was scared to death,” Barre said. “She was so frightened
that people would treat him unkindly and not accept him. She was terrified.
But he was determined.”
“I thought he was one of the neatest kids I ever met in my life,” said
the Rev. Bob Timchak, who was the director of religious formation at Bishop
Hoban High School when Christopher spoke there in the spring of 1997.
“I was impressed by his courage and just how nice he was,” Timchak said.
“He was a very special kid. This is an absolute shock.”
Call Nocek at 829-7250