Lynette Robinson was as practical and organized about dying as she was about everything else. "We all know we're going to die," she told friends a few years back. "I just know what I'm going to die of." As she entered the final stages of breast cancer, she called on friends to clear out her condo closets and cupboards. She told them just what to do with it all. Still, they were unprepared for how neat everything was - every drawer a model of organization. Lynette's orderliness prompted one friend to quip, "If anything happens to me on the way home, just go by my house and burn it down! " Her neatness was marred only by her inability to keep her coffee in its cup. Somehow she always sloshed it on the table, on the person sitting next to her, or on her front. Friends called it "doing a Lynette." It could be discouraging to compare yourself to Lynette - funny, courageous, generous, intelligent. Attractive, too. With stunning clothes and snappy cars. Loved by friends and respected by colleagues. But she would have pooh-poohed such a description. She just saw herself as a woman who worked hard, loved what she did and fielded whatever life tossed her way.

It wasn't always easy. Her husband of 16 years died of lung cancer in 1988. The following year she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 51 when she died Aug. 1. From the time she was young, Lynette knew she wanted to teach special education. She had a way with kids and a desire to help. A native of Milwaukee, she graduated from high school in Wausau and got her bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Clair. In 1969 she moved to California. Riverside sounded nice. Lynette always did love water and wanted to be near a beach. She quickly discovered, however, there wasn't much of a river, and no beach, and moved to Newport Beach the following year.

Lynette taught special education for the Garden Grove school system, and, in 1972 - before such classes were mandated by law - started the county's first class for profoundly disabled youngsters. That same year, she married Doug Robinson. After five years at the now- closed Huntington Beach Special School, Lynette sought a job as director of pupil personnel in Encinitas. She learned she'd been I hired the same day she learned she had cancer. By now her life was marked by some unsought divisions: life with Doug; life after his death. Life healthy; life with cancer.

As a happy, healthy couple, Lynette and Doug lived in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, then San Clemente - always near the water. Their free time revolved around sailing. They had a 35- foot sailboat on which they spent weekends in Catalina. They even decorated their house like the inside of a boat. Reluctant to bring children into a world where so many youngsters need homes, in 1976 they adopted brothers ages 7 and 9.