Washington — Thomas Robinson got out of a black limousine and immediately went to comfort his 7-year-old sister Jayla, who was waiting outside Antioch Baptist Church Thursday morning.

Jayla’s hair was done up in meticulous braids with blue beads at the tips. She clung to her brother’s waist and scrunched down against the fur lining of her parka’s collar.

It was the third funeral in less than a month for Robinson, a sophomore forward on the University of Kansas basketball team. Robinson’s grandmother died in late December and his grandfather died less than three weeks later. Then, last Friday, the most shocking blow — his mother, Lisa Robinson, died from an apparent heart attack at age 43.

By the end of the day Robinson’s pain would bring together the people from this neighborhood on the east side of Washington, D.C., and the entire Kansas men's basketball team. Together, in the modest red-brick church, they remembered Lisa Robinson and sought to comfort Thomas, Jayla and their brother Jamah.

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Lisa Robinson funeral services

The Kansas men's basketball team attended the funeral of Thomas Robinson's mother in Washington on Thursday. (Photos from the Associated Press.)

Robinson’s family and friends arrived throughout the morning, driving through half-plowed streets after a storm dumped several inches of snow on the District the night before.

Javorn Farrell played with Robinson at Riverdale Baptist High School in Maryland. Now a sophomore guard at the University of Massachusetts, he had a game Wednesday at St. Bonaventure University, but caught the first flight out of Buffalo, New York, Thursday morning to attend the funeral.

“When I got the news, I was heartbroken,” Farrell said. “Thomas is like a brother to me.”

Just before noon, Robinson’s current basketball brothers arrived. The Jayhawks got off their coach bus and, one at a time, hopped over a growing puddle of slush in their dress shoes and entered the church. They filed past Lisa Robinson’s white casket and gave a short hug to their teammate.

Robinson rose from his seat and lingered over his mother’s body before the ceremony started, wiping away tears. He had placed a white rose and a Kansas jersey inside the casket. Earlier in the day Lisa Robinson’s cousin, MacArthur Wilder, said Lisa dreamed that her son would attend college.

Midway through the funeral Wilder gave a prayer thanking God for getting everyone to the church safely, including the entire basketball team that flew in from Kansas.

“We’re family, and this is something we wanted to do for Thomas,” senior guard Tyrel Reed said in a statement released by the Kansas athletics department. “Thomas is our brother and he and Jayla are hurting. We’ll do anything we can to make sure they get through this.”

Wilder also thanked the Kansas administration and the student body for their support. Before the ceremony he marveled at the way a campus of 30,000 students seemed to become a much smaller place when one of their own was hurting.

“If you can only imagine in this time of pain and hurt, and tears that flow, that one of the comforts is that there are people who care,” Wilder said. “You do have an extended family, and I believe that the University of Kansas for Thomas is an extended family.”

Randy Beamon, the Jayhawks’ team pastor from 2002 to 2009, now lives in Virginia and was at the funeral. Rev. William H. Gibbs of Antioch Baptist invited him to speak.

“This is a family, you know that Thomas, don’t you, this basketball team is a family,” Beamon said, then turned to the team on the other side of the church. “And you guys here, you have a huge responsibility to embrace him as you’ve already done. And that will honor the Lord.”

Robinson did not speak at the funeral, but he stood nearby when Jayla got up to read a letter she had written to her mom. With her father at her side, Jayla read in a small voice that was nearly inaudible even when Gibbs put a portable microphone in front of her. But the words “I love you, Mommy” seemed to come through clearer than the rest.

Robinson seemed to draw strength from the ceremony, which concluded with a soaring eulogy by Gibbs. He stood at the rear of the church as people filed past and accepted condolences. Kansas coach Bill Self gave him a hug and Robinson said he was doing OK.

“It was a beautiful service,” Self said in the athletics department statement. “It was sad, but also very uplifting. It was great to see that Lisa had so many family and friends come to pay their respects and pay tribute to her.”

Outside the church the two groups mingled, with some of Robinson’s family and friends posing for pictures with the Kansas players. When Robinson finally came down the stairs of the church and out onto the street the team gathered around him almost instinctively.

Wilder said when he heard the news of his cousin’s death his first thought was, “Oh God, how much more can we bear?” But he said that faith would get the family through, and that he was daydreaming the night before about Thomas Robinson being within the loving embrace of thousands of fans roaring for him at Allen Fieldhouse.

“This is what I’m sensing from the University of Kansas: that Thomas’ pain and suffering is my pain and suffering,” Wilder said. “That’s what they’re saying to me, and I found myself choking back tears.”

Editor’s note: Andy Marso is a 2004 University of Kansas graduate, a master’s student at the University of Maryland and a contributor for the Washington Post. The Kansan's plans to send a reporter and photographer to Washington, D.C., were derailed after flights were canceled due to heavy snow.

— Edited by Samantha Collins