Robert Jay Kastenbaum

Hello,
Thank you for your condolences and best wishes for me and our family. The best gift you have given is your memories of Bob as a scholar, teacher, researcher, baseball fan, and much more. You have reminded me of precious times in his life.
We are planning a commemoration “Robert Kastenbaum: Tribute to a Life” honoring Bob's scholarship, creativity and humanity. It will be February 23rd, 2014, 1:30-4:00, in the Recital Hall, at Arizona State University School of Music, 50 E Gammage Pkwy, Tempe, Arizona 85287-0405. The program will include excerpts from his books, plays, and poetry. It may also include music composed by Kenneth LaFave. The words are Bob's. Anyone who wishes to come is welcome. I will need an RSVP to know you are coming because Bob would not have felt a program was complete without some scrumptious food. And so scrumptious food is planned. We know Arizona will be at its best in February.

I have been using Robert's textbook on dying for many years. He has been a beacon for me in the death and dying field. He will be greatly missed. Best wishes to his family and friends.

I just learned of Bob's death from the Human Values in Aging Newsletter and was very sad. I loved his sense of humor and his wide-ranging interests.

Anne M. Wyatt-Brown (Baltimore, MD)

Oh Bonnie...I was just looking up an email address for Bob. I am so shocked to hear of his passing. He was my mentor and I considered him a man of such integrity. I worked with Bob at Arizona State University as his Assistant Director of the Adult Development and Aging Program. During those years, we wrote grants, conducted research, taught classes and yes performed one of his many plays! We laughed and smiled a lot! I always enjoyed his witt and his unique ability to integrate humor and sensitivity with life. I will always feel gratitude and respect for Dr. K....

I just learned of Bob's passing. We worked together in 60's at the Framingham state geriatric hospital. It was a research project dealing with time,etc. I have so many good memories of that time lots to laugh and cry about. I am sorry he is no longer with us and sorry I never made contact over all these years. He was a remarkable and most creative person. It was an honor to know him.

I was a graduate assistant for Dr. K when he was the Director of the Adult Development and Aging Program at ASU from 1987 to 1988. It is fitting that I met my "Boss" for the first time at an ASU baseball game. I asked his secretary when I would meet him and she said he wanted to meet at the ASU game and gave me the exact seat and row he was in. I went to the game and we talked baseball all afternoon. A few weeks later in the office I asked him what my job description was and he just smiled at me and said "Write". When he was guest editor of the Western Gerotological Society magazine in 1988 he published my article entitled "Living and Dying the Navajo Way." Dr. K and Bunny even traveled to the Navajo Nation to visit me two years ago and we had mutton stew and fry bread at the local restaurant. As his graduate assistant, Dr. K gave me a small income to complete my Masters Degree, but more importantly, he gave me the wonderful opportunity to known him as an individual, and as a genius in the field of aging. I will always have the utmost respect for, and be eternally grateful to, Dr. Robert Kastenbaum.

Bob will be missed. He was a great colleague and friend. I remember him editing a chapter for one of his encyclopedias and reminding me to "honor the ideas, not the person". Great advice that I have passed along to my students and colleagues.

Bunny and family. I just learned of Bob's death. He was a special guy with such a creative mind. I remember well good times together with Weisman and other friends in Boston. I flew to Detroit to see you perform in one of his early plays as the nymph! Your thesbian debut as I recall. Have appreciated your friendship over the years and am thinking about you during these difficult days. - Bill Worden

Obviously Dr. Kastenbaum was a brilliant professor and mentor to many students. Another side of him was a love of baseball, especially Arizona State University baseball! Many thanks to him and his wife for their support during the years of my late husband's career and since. Don't know if he knew Dr. Jim Brock, who served as head coach from 1972 to 1994. I remain a fan and often have seen the Kastenbaums arrive to Brock Ballpark. My sympathy to the family...may God bless you all.

In 1970, as a PhD student at York University (Toronto) I approached Bob who was then at Wayne State and, with great trepidation, I asked if he would sit on my doctoral examining committee. He graciously agreed and this lead to a long association. I'm deeply saddened by the loss of this kind, compassionate, and brilliant man. He will be missed.

Sympathy to Bunny and her family, May the love and support of family and friends help you all to keep sharing the happy memories with each other.
Wendee Johnson

I met Bob when I was graduate student at ASU. He was a kind and wonderful man. He will be very much missed.

Bea, the world is a lesser place without Bob Kastenbaum. My sincere sympathy for your loss. Bob was my colleague in the Department of Communication, my friend, the esteemed mentor for my late wife, Jean Taylor Perrill, for her Graduate Certificate in Gerontology, and our editor/publisher (in Omega) for Jean's development (and our testing) of an in-hospital Hospice in Florida (1983-85). We both valued knowing Bob. I'm sorry to be in MN for the summer and can't attend a memorial or celebration of his life. He made the world a better place and those who knew him more human. He is missed!
Dr. Norman K. Perrill, ASU, 1966-93, now Mesa, AZ & Hutchinson, MN

I was a student of Dr. Kastenbaum, who almost wasn't. It was just by chance that at the end of my undergraduate degree, a few credits short of graduating I stumbled upon his class; Death, Dying and Society. I thought; “How bad could it be?” It turned out to be one of the most enriching and enjoyable experiences of my entire undergraduate program. I found Dr. Kastenbaum to be a captivating instructor. From the moment he started lecturing he drew me in and opened my mind to thoughts and concepts that had never before occurred to me. He had a way of illuminating dark areas that are often avoided, infusing these subjects with a breathless excitement. It was his creative curiosity and innovativeness that was so intriguing, and for those of us who loved that class, his thoughts and insights have stayed with us for a lifetime.

He had such a unique approach to teaching. During one of the classes he invited us to close our eyes and bring into our consciousness three people we deeply loved. He then instructed us to imagine a spotlight, representing life, shining down brightly on each of them. Once we all had that image firmly in mind, he told us to slowly dim the light on each beloved figure until they were invisible, and engulfed in darkness.

I visualized my husband's parents, who had all but adopted me and to whom I felt very close. For the third figure I took the emotional risk he had wanted us to take. I visualized my then five year old son. Turning out the lights on my father-in-law, and then my mother-in-law was uncomfortable and sad, but not excruciatingly painful. However, when it came to dimming the light of life on my little boy I felt the full force of that lesson. I could not bring myself to do it, the sensation that that image created was overwhelming and terrifying. With that brief exercise, he taught me what grief was; how enormous, black and heavy it is, and how powerless we are in the face of it.

It may be hard for anyone who didn't know him to realize that a man who spent much of his academic life immersed in the study of death and dying really knew how to live. He was interested in so many things, and in people of all ages. He had a deep appreciation for the elderly, and was one of the pioneers in the field of Gerontology. He described to us his experiments in various nursing homes where he introduced a wine cart that rolled down the isle dispensing reds and whites to the residents. What had seemed like dementia in some of these older people was in fact a behavioral response to boredom and monotony. He introduced something novel and fun into their day, and reveled in their enthusiastic responses.

For my term paper for his class I wrote about The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a long time fascination of mine. He loved it. He called me into his office and we discussed it at length. That's when I saw his deep curiosity and joy in discovery. He was not that familiar with the work and as we talked I felt like we were experiencing a moment of conveyance of knowledge from teacher to student, and from student to teacher.

Before having the wonderful accident of wandering into Dr. Kastenbaum's class I was ensconced in a familiar form of denial; the misconception that death was something that only happened to old people, and in all likelihood would never happen to me. Dr. Kastenbaum reminded us that death comes throughout the lifespan; it can appear after the first breath of a newborn, to a teenager speeding down the freeway, to a young wife and mother struck down by cancer. And yet, this basic truth that death could come at any time to any one of us never seemed to frighten him. He embraced the subject of Thanotology; the study of death and dying, as a great intellectual adventure. For Dr. Kastenbaum the fact that we all die made life vividly real and valuable, and that knowledge lent a particular shine and glimmer to everything he said and did.

Dr. Kastenbaum was a kind, creative, fun, funny, brilliant man. I was fortunate to have met him, to have had the joy of reading his books and have listened to his lectures. I was saddened to hear of his passing, but in thinking back over his long life of wonderful accomplishments, remembering his fascination with all aspects of life, including death, all I can say is; “Dr. K., you are on your way, you have embarked on your most glorious adventure”.

JoAnn Richi
August 2, 2013

I would like to attend the upcoming celebration and appreciation of Dr. Kastenbaum's life. Please keep me informed of the time and place. I may be reached at [email protected] or by phone at (602) 578-9766

I met Dr. Kastenbaum when I presented at a conference of the Forum of Death Education and Counseling (now know as ADEC: The Thanatology Association.). My presentation was on art work of grieving clients using Dr. Kastenbaum's research to further explain their unique grieving processes. Unknowingly, Bob was in the audience and some of my friends introduced me to him at the end of my presentation. I was mortified...Bob graciously thanked me and asked for a copy of the drawings! He was incredible. As a student of Thanatology, I am forever grateful for his daring attempt to have the first college credit educational newspaper column. It was an exciting time in the field of Thanatology and Dr. Kastenbaum was in the middle of it all. God's blessings to all his friends and family.
Jeanne M Harper, MPS - Marinette WI

Bob had such a powerful impact on so many colleagues and students who were blessed to know him and learn from him. His passion for teaching will live on through all of us who continue to use the resources that he created to stimulate discussion about dying and death.

I met Bob when I was a graduate student at ASU in the 1990s. He and I shared a love of the poet Thomas Lux and it was wonderful to talk with him about poetry.

I was happy to see him again a couple of years ago at a dissertation defense about compassionate communication in hospice care work. It seemed perfectly fitting that he would return to the Hugh Downs School to be a part of this research.

I am happy that I met him and I extend my sympathy to his family.

I worked with Bob when I was first hired at Arizona State in 1990 and he was one of the kindest and most open human beings with whom I've worked as a colleague. He had an ability to see how people of all backgrounds, interests, and ages had valuable contributions to make to what we know and understand. And he genuinely expressed his joy and big-heartedness when he greeted you. Bob helped me as a young scholar and also gave me opportunities to write and publish.

I am sorry that as the years passed I lost touch with him while moving and then ultimately returning to ASU. My condolences and prayers for the family. I will remember him during the kaddish prayers over the coming holy days and year.