Nineteen

Live a life filled with joy and try to consciously consider
how to bring joy to the lives of those around you as well.
– Haydn Robarts
 
Nineteen is a book of nineteen lessons learned from Haydn Robarts, whose short life profoundly changed all around him. Written by his father, it combines a personal memoir, universal lessons, insights from religion and science, and perspectives from Haydn and his parents. The result is a work that ultimately inspires an awareness, an awakening, and a mindset toward living this precious life with purpose and clarity. Haydn was a remarkable young man whose dignified response to his own suffering provides essential wisdom and hopeful possibilities for your own life.

The philosopher is not influenced by praise or blame. He knows the truth and is not afraid, regardless of what happens to him in this world. 
—Tao Te Ching, LXVII

In December 2018, during a family vacation in Canada, Adam was asked what he would choose to be if he were not an architect. He replied without hesitation, “A hospice nurse.” Five years earlier, he had a profound experience accompanying his father through the final weeks of life before he died of cancer in Uganda. Adam could not have imagined then that nine months later he would begin to accompany his nineteen-year-old son, Haydn, through a battle with a rare brain cancer. Haydn graduated from this physical world in May 2020, one week before his twentieth birthday. Nineteen, Adam’s first book, shares the beautiful and poignant lessons learned on his family’s journey with Haydn.

About the Authors

Adam Robarts was born in London and raised in Uganda and Kenya before moving back to the UK to read architecture at Cambridge University. In 1993, he moved to China to teach architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Two years later, Adam was awarded the state-level Friendship Award – the highest honor China gives to foreign experts. In 1997, Adam and his wife, Karyn, opened their architecture and design studio in Beijing and, in 2007, Adam was inducted as an honorary member of the Interior Design Magazine Hall of Fame, awarded to outstanding designers for their significant contribution to architecture and interior design. Adam and Karyn have four children who were born and raised in China. They currently live in Bali, Indonesia, with their youngest son.

In December 2018, during a family vacation in Canada, Adam was asked what he would choose to be if not an architect. He replied, without hesitation, “A hospice nurse.” Five years earlier, he’d had a profound experience accompanying his father through the final weeks of life before he died of cancer in Uganda. Adam could not have imagined then that nine months later he would begin to accompany his 19-year-old son Haydn through a similar battle. Nineteen, is Adam’s first book. It is written in collaboration with Karen Malmqvist and Lou Aronica.

Lou Aronica collaborated with Sir Ken Robinson on the New York Times bestsellers The Element and Finding Your Element, and with Jim Kwik on the recent New York Times bestseller Limitless. Lou is also the co-author of the nonfiction bestseller The Culture Code with Clotaire Rapaille, and The Greatest You with Trent Shelton. He is the author of national bestselling novels The Forever Year, Blue, The Journey Home, and When You Went Away. He is the President and Publisher of the independent publishing house The Story Plant, and a past president of Novelists, Inc.