Born in Charlotte, NC in 1959 with three holes in his heart, Richard M. Blackwell, Jr. was the first baby on record to have open heart surgery in order to repair them at Stanford Hospital. His family moved from North Carolina to Palo Alto, California in order for Richard to be admitted to the hospital as part of a cardiac program being started there.  He was part of the initial Ronald McDonald house program where a number of children with chronic illnesses were housed and cared for.  He went through six more heart surgeries before the age of 5 trying to also repair the by-cuspid aortic valve he was born with, but his body would reject anything that wasn't "factory issued" as he would put it.  He was finally released from the hospital at age six to go home and live with his family with a diagnosis that he wouldn't live past age 15.  His mother Rosemarie, who was the daughter of two immigrants from Italy, was a surgical RN, having assisted in some of the surgeries on her son at Stanford Hospital and his father was a policeman and a veteran in Palo Alto, CA.  Richard started from that age to try to live his life to the fullest with the idea that he only had a short time to live.  He lived life fearlessly, challenging himself to constantly try new things and not let fear get in his way.

Richard was very intelligent and always eager to learn. He loved science-fiction, having met Leonard Nimoy in the hospital and played chess with him.  Star Trek was his favorite show.  He used his creativity and wrote short stories that were published in Reader's Digest at age 8, he learned to paint and express his feelings through art and had his own art show at age 10, he learned how to cook from his Grandfather and Uncles who owned a 3-star Italian Restaurant and started working there at age 13.  He also had a love for horses and learned to ride, rope and shoot from his father.  Competed in many junior rodeos in his young teens and also trick shooting competitions with his father.  When his father sold the horses, he moved on to find he had a love of sports.  He learned martial arts from his best friend's Dad and he taught himself to play tennis by practicing against a back-board for 4 hours a day all summer before 9th grade started.  After playing on the team that year in High School, he was invited to join the semi-pro Golden Gate Tennis League where Chris Everett and John McEnroe were just starting out.  He joined for 2 weeks, until the insurance company decided his heart condition was too much of a risk to take him on and they had to let him go.

Since tennis didn't work out, he decided to try his hand at bowling.  He and his younger brother Tony were on a team together that went all the way to state championship play.  Brunswick had approached him to talk about going pro after he got out of high school.  However, his Dad was offered a Sheriff's job in Idaho that next year and the family moved to Wallace, ID.  Richard then joined the football team where he earned the nick-name Axe because he plowed down that offensive line and loved sacking the QB.  Richard stayed in Idaho for many years, he loved it there.  He worked on a ranch helping to herd horses down to Wyoming.  Lived in a one room shack with his horse.  Loved the view and the solitude.  Later, he moved in with his older sister and her husband to help with their new-born baby.  Found himself being active in the Open Bible Church as a youth pastor and guidance counselor for troubled teens.  He met his first wife Patti through mutual connections of the church.  They married when he was 21 and he received a full paid scholarship to go to Oral Roberts University to study Law.  However, right at the time they were going to move they found out there were going to have a baby.  They changed plans and moved to Minnesota where Patti was from to be near her family.  His first son, Travis Lee was born there.

After about a year of trying to make it in Minnesota, Richard packed up the family and moved back to Idaho.  His Mom needed him and he missed the mountains.  While in Idaho, he found his love for wood-working.  He and a few buddies from work started building a craftsmen wood boat.  Took them six months to complete.  The first day they brought it out on the Lake they sold it and ended up starting a hand-crafted furniture building business. He also helped restore old Victorian homes, honing his remodeling and wood-working skills.  His second son, Joseph Michael was born that same year.   To make ends meet Richard also became a Watson product home sales person.  With his love of cooking, he would have fun home parties with house-wives and mothers selling home baking needs from Watson's.  He loved doing the demonstrations.  He always loved to cook and especially loved to eat, after all, he was Italian!

He moved to the San Francisco bay area to help is mother after her divorce, Patti and the kids soon followed.  Richard found a job working at Denny's as a head chef.  In time, is third son, Joshua Nathaniel, was born.  Living in the bay area was a struggle, costs were high and jobs were scarce.  Patti and Richard didn't make it through and she moved with the kids back to Minnesota to be near her family and they were divorced.  Richard then met a lovely lady named Gaylene, she was half Hawaiian and half Japanese.  She had one son who was four years old at the time, his name was James.  They soon married and had his fourth son, Jason Brandon.  Richard continued to work at Denny's, but now was given the job as a trouble-shooter.  He would go to troubled restaurants and pose as a customer for a week, then come in and clean house.  He'd re-train the staff, the chef's, the managers or fire them if needed; then, turn the restaurants around to profitable again.

He left the restaurant business to work an interesting opportunity with his mother helping her boss selling FCC licensing applications for wireless radio towers.  He learned anything and everything he could about the FCC Licensing rules and regulations.  Then re-wrote the sales scripts, the commercials and retrained all the staff to make sure they were staying within the law and selling an application, not a license.  He traveled all over the U.S. hosting seminars, negotiated some major multi-million dollar deals and lived the life of an executive, with tailored suits and 4-star hotels.  However, it was taking him away from his family way too much and when his son asked him once "Daddy, why don't you live with us anymore?"... he walked away from it for good, only to find that his boss had been embezzling all the funds and he was left with nothing to walk away with.  They moved in with Gaylene's parents and started over again.  He worked hard and started a remodeling and repair company working for property management companies in doing property repair work on apartment complexes and housing offices.  Gaylene ran the office at home.  He quickly grew the business to a million dollar business running six crews and multiple job sites.  However, Gaylene's grandfather was very sick so they decided to take some time and go to Hawaii to spend time with him.  Richard left the business in the hands of a childhood friend of his wife's and second in command of the business.  The scoundrel quickly cleared out the bank accounts and headed to South America leaving Richard with no business to return home to.  He had to file bankruptcy and sell everything he had just to get out of the debt that was created by the loss of funds.  They were going to have to start over again from scratch.  All of this was too much for Gaylene to handle again, so the separated and they ended up getting divorced a year later.

Richard then found himself wanting to try something new, always learning, always fearless in living his life.  He started attending computer classes at ITT Tech.   He was top of his class, was on his way to graduating in the six-month program, until the admissions office had to stop him saying they couldn't find record of his high school diploma.  As it so happened, he had a heart attack his senior year of high school which took him out of classes for six months.  He came back and finished mid-year, in order to graduate with a degree.  However, the school records had listed him as deceased in his senior year, with no diploma on file.  He tried to find someone who could remember him and vouch for him, and finally did, but it was too late for ITT Tech and that was another dream that died by the wayside.  He moved in with his younger brother Tony and started working where Tony worked as a security guard.  Richard had come to the conclusion that he was happy being alone, he was 35 years old.  His initial heart surgeon had told him he would most likely live until he was 40, but his heart wouldn't last much more than that.

He had done everything he had wanted to do in life without fear, until that fateful day at a Chili Cook-off over Fourth of July weekend when he met the love of his life, Heidi Ann.  He was working as a security guard checking IDs to allow guests to purchase beer.  She had volunteered through her work to work at the booth serving beer.  She found a person that didn't have a stamp on their hand and reached to touch Richard's shoulder, he turned and heard a voice whisper to him "I made her for you", and then heard angels singing.  She had a glow about her, she smiled at him, she was absolutely beautiful.   She asked again, "Can you please check his ID?"... he was hooked.  He never left her side for the rest of the day, they talked when they could about many different things.  When the event was over, she tried to give him her number and run off.  He wasn't about to let that happen, he'd never see her again.  He asked her to wait while he checked in with his boss before leaving.  She did.  He asked her to walk with him to his car, she did.  He asked her to go have coffee, should couldn't, she had plans.  She gave him her business card and asked him to call her at work on Monday.  It was torture having to wait two whole days, but he did and he called her first thing in the morning on Monday.  They talked for hours.  He felt like he had known her his whole life.  She kept surprising him with her intelligence and knowledge of so many topics.  He had found another person who loved to learn like he did.  He was actually intimidated by this woman, for the first time in his life he felt fear.  But, he asked her out for dinner,  he wasn't going to let fear stand in his way.  He decided that he needed to get it over with and just tell her every single bad thing he could think of about himself right up-front.  He was surprised by every response, she didn't flinch.  She had no fear either.  From that day forward they were inseperable.  Their "date" turned into to a weekend of dates, by the end of the third day he asked her to marry him.  He was ready.  She was still a little hesitant, so they moved in together within a month, but were married within a year.  He was so amazed she wanted to marry this man who was 9 years older than her, divorced twice, had 4 boys and a heart condition that would probably have him dying within the next 5 years.  He called her Angel, because that is what she was.

A few years later, Heidi had an opportunity to move to Texas with her work.  Richard had just finished helping a co-worker remodel her house and she had 3 other friends lined up to have work done as well.  He was on the verge of starting his remodeling company up again, there was a decision to be made.  Since Richard had already followed his dreams, they decided to let Heidi follow hers and they moved to Houston, Texas.  Within three months of moving there, Heidi was pregnant with her first child and his fifth.  Richard was going to be able to stay home and raise his child, something he had never been able to do before.  It was a role reversal marriage, but it worked well for both of them.  He used to always say he loved being a house husband and Mr. Mom.  It was the most challenging and yet rewarding job he had ever tried.  He loved taking care of their daughter, Holly Ann.  When Holly was six months old, Richard received a call from Patti, Joey was living in Idaho with his Aunt and Uncle, causing problems.  She was shipping him to live with his Dad.  Joey moved to Texas just in time for his senior year of high school.  Richard was now raising a six month old and a 17 year old.  He handled it in stride.

It wasn't long after that Joey had convinced his older brother Travis to also move to Texas to live with Dad and Heidi.  He also brought home a friend he had met who needed help as well, his name was Wayne.  He was paying for a hotel to sleep in nightly, only earning enough just to pay for living there.  He had been kicked out of his house at age 18 and was struggling to make ends meet.  Richard and Heidi took him in too.  Three teenagers and Holly.  It was a full house!  They needed a larger place to live now, so they found a 3 bedroom apartment and Richard found a job helping the owner with maintenance and remodeling the complex they would live in.  Wayne and Travis would also work for the owner and learn the construction trade from Richard.  Holly went into daycare, Joey went to school and Heidi kept on working.   Things were going fine for about a month, when Richard had a horrible work accident and fell through a plate glass window.  A shard of glass didn't break away and ended up ripping his arm to shreds.  While at the hospital, his heart condition had also started to become a concern, especially with the blood loss he had experienced with the fall.  Richard had turned 40, it was time.  He knew it.  They found his by-cuspid valve was so corroded, it was staying open 65% of the time which was causing the multiple sinus rhythm attacks he had been having.   He needed to have the valve replaced, but he knew from when he was younger, his body didn't accept anything that wasn't "factory issued".  The doctor said they had made great strides in his lifetime and rejection wasn't really an issue they worried about any longer.  He had the surgery to fix his arm, but lost the use of his hand.  Then two months later had surgery to replace his aortic valve with a pig valve.  Both were successful.  He was going to live past 40.  Now what?

It took Richard a little while to wrap his mind around the fact that his valve was fixed and he was going to keep on living.  However, he finally found his way again.  Realizing that he had the love of his life and his children around him now.  Life was good.  They bought a house.  Travis had met a girl and moved in with her, Joey and Richard butted heads and parted ways for a while.  Wayne moved with Heidi and Richard into the new house and helped Richard with his recovery and found a job building cabinets.  Richard stayed home and went back to being Mr. Mom to Holly Ann.  Over the years Richard tried again to start up a remodeling business, having all three boys work for him at some point along the way.  Training them in his ways and passing on his knowledge.   The business really never got off the ground though the way it had in California.  He started working for a company that built outdoor kitchens.  He really found he loved doing that.  It put all his knowledge to use, carpentry, masonry, plumbing and electrical.  He could build a kitchen in about a week and loved the "child on Christmas morning looks" he would received from the home owners when he revealed the finished product.  He made some beautiful outdoor spaces.

When the economy folded in 2008, the purely "want item" sales of outdoor kitchens dropped too.  The stress ended up being a bit too much for Richard and he had an arrhythmia attack that sent him into the hospital for a week.  He found himself without work again, he needed to change careers.  Heidi was laid off from her job the next year.  It was time to start over again.  Richard went to truck driving school and became an over-the-road 18 wheel truck driver.  Working for a company in Arkansas.  As much as he loved being able to travel and see the Continental United States from the best seat in the house, he missed is lovely wife and daughter back home terribly.  He was struggling as well with his eye sight, the latest arrhythmia attack and caused quite a change in his peripheral vision.  He was having trouble determining distance while backing up the truck and moving side-to-side switching lanes.  They tried changing his prescription and his mirrors to convex mirrors, but the third time he blew out a tire by checking the curb, his company had to let him go.  He could no longer work for a living.  He had just been forced into retirement.  Luckily, Heidi had found another job by then and they were back on track.  He was a stay at home Dad and husband and she was off being the bread winner again.  Holly was a teenager now and starting to find her way.  Richard was now a grandfather as well, both Travis and Joey were married and had children.  Joshua had married as well and in 2016 had his first child, Richard's youngest grandchild Charlotte.

In 2017, Heidi lost her job again and Richard's health had begun to fade.  He was having issues trying to regulate his diabetes medicine and his heart medicine.  It was nice to have Heidi home with him.  They spent many hours together talking the way they used to for hours at a time over a myriad of topics.  They loved watching the history channel and documentaries on Netflix.  Heidi took him to the doctors, regulated his medicine, changed his diet and started him on a walking program.  She was able to get his heart from working at only 20% to up to 45% in August.  However, in December his health turned worse.  His heart was back to working only at 20%.  He died of a full cardiac arrest at 9:02am on Christmas Eve, holding Heidi's hand and knowing he was loved.  He is survived by his three siblings, Cliff, Sharon and Tony.  His wife Heidi.  His children and their spouses, Travis and Danielle, Joey and Dominique, Joshua and Marilyn, Jason and Holly Ann, who he helped over the summer change her name legally to her preferred name of Ashlynn Holly.  His grandchildren, Alexia, Brenton, Kylee, Rohan, Sawyer, Lane, Scarlett, Gavin, and Charlotte, and of course his "other son" Wayne.  He was loved dearly and will surely be dearly missed.

It was always his dream to travel the world, but with his heart condition it was really never possible. It was his dying wish to have Ashlynn Holly travel in his place. I hope you can find it in your hearts to help his wish come true. In lieu of flowers for the bereaved, please help her with this trip. Any extra funding received will go towards her college education which she will start next fall. Here is the link: https://www.youcaring.com/ashlynnhollyblackwell-971648