Our Letter to Eli

Our Letter To Eli

Our brother was a warrior. He fought a daunting and relentless battle until the very end, and he did so with pride, grace and grit. We would often say to him on tough days “Eli, you were given this life because you are strong enough to live it."” Upon his passing, these words feel truer than they ever did before.

Most of us will never understand the day to day nature of what Eli lived through,  yet we hope that by hearing his story you understand the fight he endured and how hard he tried.

Imagine living your daily life completing mundane tasks—going to the grocery store,  taking out the trash, having your morning coffee, or going out to eat—and having voices tell you that the people you love are in danger, that you have done horrible things in your past, that you are being watched or that no one is trustworthy. It’s hard to imagine right? Well on the days that Eli was struggling, this was his reality.

Eli was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2021 and every day since that diagnosis he worked towards living a peaceful life free of voices. He truly did everything right in regards to treatment and changing his lifestyle. He took his medications every single day, completed 30 rounds of electric convulsive therapy, attended all of his therapy appointments, and maintained sobriety. Eli had 16 psychiatric hospitalizations while trying to stabilize his medications, trying a total of eight different antipsychotics. He was met with so many hurdles in the trial and error process of meds and stabilization— a rare heart side effect due to one medication, another rare condition called serarotonin sensitivity syndrome, which essentially meant most medication didn’t work for him, let alone all the side effects of feeling restless in your body, weight gain, and foggyness to just name a few. This is the nature of the battle he fought.

But here’s the thing, on most days, Eli was not sad or scared. On most days, he was incredibly happy and joyful. In fact, his smile lit up a room. His large yet quiet presence was calming to those around him. His laugh was infectious. His green eyes made you feel seen. He was Eli—living fully and fighting quietly.  Eli’s life didn’t end because he didn’t want to live, his life ended because he couldn’t live tortured.

While mental illness was a part of our brother’s journey, it didn’t define him, and was in fact a small part of his 34 years. Eli’s three greatest joys and true pillars of living were: his sobriety, watching Duncan play basketball and being Gemma’s uncle.

Eli’s Sobriety

Eli was three years, six months and eighteen days sober. A true feat for someone who really struggled with alcohol and marijuana addiction through his twenties. He was committed to his sobriety and it provided him a sense of confidence. He met some of his dearest friends through sobriety and would often hold space or offer a listening ear for people struggling with addiction. He started every day with an iced mocha and then would drink about ten Spindrifts by dinner. Every family fridge was stocked with "spinnys" in case Eli stopped by. One of his favorite activities was going to  restaurants and trying their mocktails—Street and Ornells, two of his favorites. At Duncan’s recent engagement he was raving about the virgin Pina Colada while sitting on Miami Beach with his toes in the sand. He proudly wore his sobriety date around his neck behind the Saint Christopher, known as the “protector,” which now hangs even more proudly around Duncan’s neck.

Eli’s love for Duncan and Basketball

Eli was the Robinson child with the most athletic prowess. He was a gifted athlete through high school and he often boasted a better three point shot than Duncan. In his young adult years, he was very honest about the influence drugs and alcohol had on his athletic career and often stated that Duncan was living out Eli’s dream of being a professional athlete. With all that said, there was never an element of jealousy or malice toward Duncan. In fact, quite the opposite—there is no one person in the world who was more proud of Duncan, than Eli. Eli often called Marta after games wanting to rehash Duncan’s minutes and quality of play. A few weeks before he passed, he made his routine post-game call asking “Hey Mart, what did you think about the game last night?Marta responded with something along the lines of, “Oh, he played great, his defense is better than ever.” Then Marta asked, “What did you think, E?”” Dead pan silence and Eli responds “I couldn’t watch it—too big of a game, I got way too nervous. I watched the high lights though and Dbo was on fire!” This was Eli. He cared so much about Duncan’s well-being and success. He was in a bad mood for days if Duncan had a game where he didn’t shoot over 30% from three, he would become indignant and protective if he read a negative comment about Duncan on a sports blog in the deep dark depths of the internet, and on the day of big games, he couldn’t eat due to the nerves. He loved his little brother so much and in many ways lived out his athletic aspirations through him.

Eli as an Uncle

Known as “Uncle E”, he embraced his role from the moment of Gemma’s birth. His gentle nature, goofiness and natural leadership were apparent from the beginning and a reason she loved Uncle E as much as she did. He would walk into the room, Gemma would shriek and run toward him. So much so that Duncan frequently voiced his jealousy of how comfortable Gemma felt around Eli. But that is a testament to Eli—kids loved him, he was a natural care giver and teacher, and he provided immediate comfort with his smile. He referred to her as his “Gemstone” and often shared that he fought this disease as hard as he did, for her. After one of his treatment programs he received a golden apple as a token of completing treatment. He wrote a message on it to Gemma reading “Gems, I’m giving this to you for visiting me throughout my program and putting love back into my heart. I love you so much and always will. —Uncle E” . Beyond the golden apple, Eli gave Gemma a profound gift—the gift of normalizing having a loved one with mental illness. While she won’t remember the details, she has been acutely aware through this process that sometimes Eli had an “owie” in his head or he would be sad and scared—she visited him in the hospital on his toughest days and saw him laughing and living on his best days.  But the beauty was she couldn’t differentiate between the two, in her eyes, he was just Uncle E. Uncle E who was “so goofy” as Gemma says, Uncle E who played hide and seek, Uncle E who loved her so very much.

Eli's death has forever changed our family. The permanence is excruciating. We pray the days will start to feel brighter. We pray that we never lose the sound of his laugh, the sight of his huge smile, or the feeling of his strong hug. We pray that we continue to make him proud by spreading his light, making this world more accepting and supportive of those with mental illness—because no one should have to endure what he went through.

Eli, you were a warrior. And we stand by what we said to you more than a hundred times during the dark days—you were given this life because you were strong enough to live it—and it’s okay that you couldn’t keep doing it. We understand why. We will always acknowledge your fight and will forever celebrate you and all that you were. You will continue to live within us: our sober, basketball loving, Uncle E, who we absolutely adore.

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