It's taken me a long time to write about the passing of Robin Williams. Mostly because I had a lot to think about. He was a man who, unbeknownst to him, spent a lot of time in my life.
Mork and Mindy was one of the first shows that I watched on a regular basis. Here was this quirky, weird guy with all these voices and here I was, a pudgy little 3 and half year old, how could he not win me as a fan? He did and swiftly. My favorite part in the show every week was when he would report back to Ork and tell them what he learned on earth that day. There was always something to learn from it, like you should treat people with respect because then they will respect you and that even though your neighbor is bat shit crazy, you never let on that you know that he is and you treat him like everyone else. Also, if you want to be the first male cheerleader you really do need more than curiosity and eagerness. Confidence, you need confidence. And that is one thing that Robin Williams had tons of.
Not only was he a wonderful comedienne, but he was an amazing character actor. Two of my favorite movies with Robin Williams are The World According To Garp and Moscow on the Hudson. Williams' Garp gave him more character than he had in the book, giving him more credit than just the son of a feminist. Why is Moscow on the Hudson one of my favorite Williams roles? I'm not really sure, the movie just brought what it would be like to be a scared newly arrived immigrant who had just defected. His character, Vladimir, gives up everything to stay in America, which I thought was extremely brave, I was also only 11 when I watched the film for the first time. I just really liked the movie, whatever it was that resonated with me when I was 11, still resonates with me today as I re-watched the film again recently.
I wish that Mr.Williams knew how much he added to my life, not only with his willingness to make others laugh, but to make me aware that in order to make people laugh you also have to deal with the sad things in life, like homelessness, poverty, mental illness and addictions in the world. He never shied away from talking about his own mental illness and addictions or his work with the homeless. He showed that if you have good fortune you must give back to help make things better for other people, which is what he did when he made other people laugh. When you laugh it lifts you in more ways than one; it can brighten a room.
It saddens me that a man who brought so many people so much happiness had so much sadness inside himself. What saddens me even more is that he knew that he made people happy, he had to know that because when he made us laugh he lit up even more, it was like we were feeding the brightest light in the world. Many people say, " Oh if only he had gotten the help he needed" when you're in a depression like he was there is no way out, to you there is only one way out and that's it, there are no other options. Having been depressed, I know, the only thing that kept me from falling down the hole was thinking about what it would do to my daughter, she already has one parent that has opted out on her, what would it do to her if the other did the same? I couldn't do that to her so instead I went to counseling (luckily the college that I was attending at the time had free mental health care for their students, there should be more clinics like it around). I was extremely lucky that I had a really great support system in my mother and brother; without their help who knows what would've happened. I'm not saying that Mr.Williams didn't have a good support team behind him, he obviously did, but when you're dealing with a physical disease, like Parkinson or Lewy bodies disease (which it has been determined by coroners that he had) that will take you away from the people and the thing that makes you, you. I wouldn't want to live that way, to watch myself slip away and not be able to control it, would be heartbreaking and I wouldn't want my family to see me have to suffer through it. I would want them to remember me as I had been: outgoing, energetic and doing the things that I love, not suffering and having to be told who they were and what we were doing.
It breaks my heart that he is gone, but I am so happy that I had the chance and honor to witness the genius that was Mr.Robin Williams and I thank his family for sharing him with the world.
"If heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that would be a great thing," Robin Williams 1951-2014
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