Toms River Boy's Legacy: Promoting The Gift Of Life

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Robert B. Linton III was like most boys his age: he loved to go fishing with his grandfather and hang out at the beach in the summer. He loved to ride quads on his family's property in Toms River and he loved the Dallas Cowboys.

"He loved Buddy," Robert's oldest sister, Christine Linton, said this week. Buddy was the family's English springer spaniel. "He would get in his crate with him every morning before school to say goodbye."

Robert loved to go to the video game store to swap out videogames and to Stewart's for root beer with his big sister, and the two loved to gang up on their sister Melissa, to tickle her. And Robert loved to eat Oreo cookies in the bathtub, she said with a laugh.

"Robert was very full of life," Christine said. But 14 years ago, Robert's life ended when he was hit by a car as he rode his bicycle in the family's Toms River neighborhood. He had just turned 11 years old.

On Sunday, Christine Linton and more than 50 family members and friends, all part of Team RB, will join hundreds of people on the Great Lawn at Ocean Promenade in Long Branch for the NJ Sharing Network's 5K Celebration of Life. The 5K run and walk honors the memories of organ donors and organ recipients, as well as many others who support the mission of organ donation to save lives.

Robert was one of those who supported that mission.

On Oct. 1, 2004, the family — Robert, Christine, Melissa and parents Karen and Robert — were out to dinner to celebrate Robert's birthday. On a memorial page created for Robert, Karen Linton recounts how her son was looking at her driver's license. On it, Karen had selected the "organ donor" designation.

He asked what it meant, and Karen Linton explained to her son that it meant that if she died — in an accident or some other unexpected event — and it was possible, her organs could go to someone living who needed help.

"He thought that was really cool," said Christine, who was 19 at the time. So cool, in fact, that he told his mother he wanted to get that on his driver's license when he was old enough to drive.

Two days later, on his 11th birthday, Christine gave her brother his birthday gifts: a Hummer toy truck and a racetrack. He gave her a hug, and then she headed off to work.

A few hours later, Robert was hit and the family was faced with the unthinkable. He died the next day. They tried to fulfill Robert's wishes, but they were unable to donate his organs, Christine said. Instead, a group of Robert's friends held a lemonade stand to raise funds that were donated to what was then The Sharing Network for Organ & Tissue Donation.

"Those 11- and 12-year-old kids raised quite a few thousand dollars in our son's memory," Karen Linton wrote on the memorial page. A few months later, the family received a letter telling them Robert was part of the organ donor family "and always will be; every donation in any way is a donor."

Though this is just the third year Christine and her family have been participating in the Long Branch run, she said over the years she has participated in a number of events to raise money for the organization.

"When he passed we were involved in an Ocean County organization that helps grieving families," she said; that organization, The Compassionate Friends, still provides supports for families who have lost a child. "We were a little bit more low key at first."

But in recent years, Christine said, "we've become more passionate about sharing his story," in part because of listening to other families who have shared their stories — not only of loss, but of the lives that have been saved through the gifts given at a time of such immense grief.

"The chances of being able to donate organs is 1 in 10," Christine said, which is one reason the need for organ donors is so high. But for those who are fortunate enough to receive a donated organ, it changes their lives.

"It could be years they're waiting," she said. "You see the bond between these families," organ recipients and donor families who have gotten to know each other over time. "They become second families."

The families develop a bond, formed of grief and gratitude, that becomes a second family. "It's beautiful."

That has driven her and her family to share more and the response is gratifying, she said.

"Seeing people who have never met him wearing team T-shirts and participating, or even stores just letting me hang up a sign, it means so much," Christine said. "Each year that we've done this we've doubled the amount raised from the year before. And we're spreading more awareness."

Robert, who is called a "Donor in Spirit," was honored at the NJ Sharing Network’s Landscape of Life ceremony earlier this year for all of the contributions made in his memory, because those contributions help others, too.

"He gave me a big hug" the morning of his birthday, Christine said. "It was a good memory of him."

And helping to spread the word about something that was important to her brother makes her feel she is fulfilling his wishes.

"The fact that he understood how important this is, I'm sure a lot of kids his age have no idea," Christine said. "He was someone I looked up to even though he was younger than me."

You can support Team RB and the NJ Sharing Network by clicking here.

Photos provided by Christine Linton; Robert B. Linton III; Melissa, Christine and Robert; the Linton Family