"You are only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."
-Robin Williams: 1951-2014
As I sit at this desk and begin, my heart is still lodged somewhere between my stomach and my small intestine. On my way out the door two nights ago my wife asked me, "Did you hear that Robin Williams died?"
"What!?", I had said alarmingly. "No...come on...you're kidding me, right?"
I was, at that point, unsure if I had even heard her correctly, even though there was no possible way to mistake those words.
"Yeah", she said, "it was suicide."
It was at that moment when my heart began its nosedive into the deepest pit of my gut, where it is slowly climbing back up from a couple days later. I kissed my wife goodbye and threw her a facetious "Thanks", for hitting me with this awful news on my way out to work. I wasn't mad at her, but the built-in self defense mechanism of sarcasm kicked in completely involuntarily. My feelings were beginning to run away from me.
I grabbed my gear and headed to the car. I think I may have been shaking my head in disbelief between my stoop and the Nissan, but at that point a certain numbness had vaulted from my ever-receding hairline down to my Barney Rubble toes.
The first half of the drive into work was quiet inside of the car. No radio, no podcasts, no Spotify. Just the windows down, my cigarette up. "God dammit", I found myself muttering between every third or fourth drag. "God dammit."
Five minutes or so into the drive, I began wondering why in the Hell my heart has decided to cut and run so deep into my belly. Why has my well-rested, easy mood turned so irreversibly sour over the death of someone that I have never met? Another big name celebrity gone. So what? This has no effect on my life, right? When Phillip Seymour Hoffman died a few months back, I had felt a similar tinge of heartache but it subsided fairly quickly - and I consider him to be quite possibly the greatest actor I have ever seen and consider myself a very devoted fan of his. Why did it hurt? It felt like a childhood friend was gone. It was like your grandfather or your favorite uncle passed on. It was at that point that my eyes began to fill with the tiny little pools of salty heartbreak that every single one of us knows all too well. My brain began firing off rapid doses of words and images.
Rainbow suspenders. Peter Pan. "Your move, Chief". Dead poets. Popeye. Mania. Fisher King. Depression. Children left behind. World's Greatest Dad. Julliard. Comedy Store. Microphone. Blue eyes. Toys. Arm hair. Booze. Family. Addiction. Laughter. Cocaine. Crying clowns. Awakenings. Enlightenment. Peace.
The warm streak of sadness barely made it to my cheek before it was wiped away. I shook some sense into my mind and rubbed my eyes. Somewhere in that moment I had found the answer to the "Why?" It was because arguably the world's greatest clown was dead. A face that I have been laughing with and at since I was a boy, was gone. A man, that devoted his life to making millions laugh, had failed to find enough laughter and joy to keep for himself because he gave it all to us. The battles that his mind waged against itself were finally over. His little spark of madness was to be irrevocably lost.
As I finally decided that some music would help deter my mind, I turned on the radio and I began a sort of condensed, lightning-fast version of the stages of grief. My brain was already trying to deny that I had heard this horrific news. I moved directly to anger. He had kids. He had a wife. He had countless friends and admiring fans. He was honored and respected by so many of his peers (even after years of alleged joke stealing.) What kind of a selfish asshole would do that to them? Another drag from my cigarette. Another "God dammit."
My higher primate sense of better judgment slowly eased back into place. Nobody really knows what is going on in the mind of a person who is about to throw in the great big towel. We are hearing now that Robin Williams' long history of depression was growing more and more severe in recent months. Hearing that, I can't help but picture Robin's face from his movies when he acted upset. The scrunched brow. The hound dog frown. The very real sadness that radiated out of his eyes. I began thinking how easy it really is to say that Robin taking his own life was selfish or cowardly. It is easy and it is wrong.
Speaking from personal experience, I know that the crushing weight of depression, anxiety, and/or addiction is very real and very, very serious. When faced with these troublesome aspects of their personality, bearers of these traits (in their most severe forms) can ultimately lead themselves to the conclusion that the world might just be better off without them in it. Oh, how we wish we could convince them to the contrary. Also, let me say this: as a parent and as a person who has had issues with depression, anxiety, and addiction, the overwhelming negativity and sense of doom that surfaces can VERY easily beat back the positivity in your life, i.e. beautiful healthy kids, gainful employment, a fridge full of food. Logic and reasoning do not dwell alongside severe depression and anxiety, they are in a very high stakes war with one another. Most of those who live with these dark inclinations can almost always find a way back off of the ledge, back into the light. Unfortunately there are those who decide that the shadow is the only place left to go. But it is not for us left behind to judge the one's who decide to check out early, we were not in their shoes. We knew not their pain.
If there is anything to be learned from the passing of Robin Williams, it is that nobody can ever really be sure how tremendous the struggles of our neighbors, friends, and family. We can never be completely certain how we will leave this place but we can all take a page out of Robin's playbook. Love each other, entertain each other, try and make one another laugh. Give charitably, always put your bravest face forward, and most of all, to quote Plato, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
God dammit, Robin. God dammit.
