Why you're my hero

I have wanted to write something about the death of Robin Williams since I heard the news, but have not found the right words best to describe the impact of losing one of my heroes and idols.

When I was told, the first thing I thought of was his laugh, and my favourite quote:

“We’re only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”

Then, as I watched the world pour out its heart in shock and disbelief with endless images and quotes filling my social media feed, I could only think about how I had lost a hero of mine.

My love of film, theater and media goes back to a childhood filled with the golden age of cinema and being “forced” to watch classic films by my mother and grandparents on TV. Part of that included a grandmother that took me to the movies at every possible chance. My childhood through the 80’s was a rich tapestry of kids movies and classics alike. From Casablanca to ET, Singin in the Rain to The Three Amigos, Black Beauty to The Black Cauldron, I had the privilege of seeing greatness blaze the big and small screen in actors like Bogart, Hepburn, Tracey, Kaye, Foster, DeNiro, Martin, Chase, Hopkins, Field, Hanks, and the list goes on and on.  My appreciation for film as art was forged through films by Hitchcock, Spielberg, Bergman, Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, Burton, Lynch and the countless others that taught me to see more than a great shot. These things developed a love of cinema that would continue through my entire life, to a point where I wanted to write and make my own.

Robin, Robin has been there all along. I would watch him as Mork in Mork and Mindy in a weekday afternoon triple header which included classic sitcoms Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days. From 4.30pm to 6pm the TV was mine. It was my time.  Robin was Mork from Ork and I desperately wanted rainbow coloured suspenders and a spaceship shaped like an egg. I would watch waiting for the last few minutes where he spoke with Orson. It was here, in Morks final reflections that the humour would take a backseat to what he had learned about the “humans”. Often dripping with a dark humour, the tragedy of life was shown, but I never realised this until I watched the show as an adult.

I have recently finished my Williams marathon with the much maligned but sensational Toys. Robin is brilliantly sublime in this film as he is in many others where he shows off his ability to blend comedy with tragedy. He had a deep understanding of turning tragedy into something we could all laugh at, yet, even in the hilarious characters he played on the screen, he was able to show the frayed edges of them with subtlety. I think Robin understood that we could we could either bury our head in the sand or find something to laugh about in life’s difficulties.

I still remember watching Popeye, one of the first films I saw in the cinema. And as I grew, up, his films have always been something I sought out. I watched my first double header of Sister Act and Mrs Doubtfire with my best friend. Good Morning Vietnam  inspired me to be louder than everyone else, while Dead Poets Society was the first time I recognised that Robin was passionate about thing of intellect like poetry, how else could he channel that manic nature into something so idol as poetry if he didn’t have a deep appreciation for it? In fact, look at a few of his films; he recites poetry as if it were the yin to his over the top yang. I followed this guy so much, I’ve seen just about everything he’s done, even the bad stuff, and religiously watched his latest TV show The Crazy Ones.

Robin’s documentary on dolphins was one of the first lessons I ever had on my journey of discovery with dolphin behavior and I can still remember seeing Robin’s awe at being so close with them. You could see a love and deep respect for this animal, an understanding that went further than emotion to intelligence. He saw more than a grey fish and marveled at their intelligence in quiet awe, while still pulling out some wise cracks about what they must think of him because he was so hairy.

Robin gave all he had to others he loves. Gave freely to those he met and those less fortunate than himself. He had a heart and passion for the homeless and spent 20 years working with friends Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg with Comic Relief. And the legacy that will remain is the amazing story of how his friendship with Christopher Reeves went so deep that after becoming a quadriplegic, Robin looked after him. Paid the bills, made him laugh, and gave him a reason to live.

He was a frenetic ball of charismatic energy, but when no one is watching you, you have nothing but the noise. I was not surprised when I saw Henry Winkler’s tweet;

“He was a shy man who changed the instant the cameras were rolling.”

I suppose when we have an audience, we forget the noise. Maybe they drown it out just long enough to forget.

You can see that reservedness in some of his interviews, especially when talking about something close to his heart or that deserves a modicum of sensitivity. He does get serious. He was so smart. Where everyone focuses on his humour, they may not realise that he was intelligent. He loved literature and poetry and gave open mic talks on Tolkien. He loved classical music and was strongly opinionated when it came to politics. He was a gamer, naming his daughter after Zelda (a Nintendo character) and an animal lover. He was an activist. He was loud and quiet all at once. He was so talented and could create characters, with a life and a story and a voice in an instant. He did that with Genie, Batty, Fender and his penguin menagerie from Happy Feet.

I am still in as much disbelief as everyone else at how sudden his death was and to know that Robin made the choice to end his life (for whatever reason, we’ll never really know) is one of the saddest deaths of a well-known person in recent times. But I’m not really sad that we will never get to see him grace the screen again. I’m sad that it could be me. I’m sad that it could be you. I’m sad that the depression he endured for years lay in wait underneath that wicked smile and furry exterior, like the wolf to the lamb. I’m sad because it lays in wait for so many of us, me included.

It’s not about seeing the public outpouring of grief and disbelief, the “he gave so much, how could he do it?” or “he was surrounded by a world of love” or the ignorance in statements like “he was a coward”, “he chose the easy option” and “how could someone so funny feel so alone”.

I hate the commentary that occur when someone takes their life, as if anyone who has not experienced really knows, this belief that suicide is a sign of weakness, that it is a cowards act, that its selfish when they leave behind so much. It’s not cowardly and it’s not a sign of weakness. It’s an act of desperation. And perhaps it is selfish, because in the moment, you are unable to think about anything else and like a giant storm cloud, it blackens the horizon and blocks out the light.

In that moment, success, money, reputation and laughter mean nothing. None of it negates the lies that we tell ourselves in the silence, when the laughter has stopped, when no one is looking. Everything that happens to us is filtered through those lies, no matter how much “love” and “adulation” we receive, it’s never enough, and we are always searching for approval, something to silence the insecurity that we feel. Perhaps that’s why Robin was so manic. It’s so hard to stop the self-loathing and self-doubt long enough to stop feeding the black dog. With depression, the stuff inside you never goes away and doesn’t just because you’re funny or smiling, self-depreciating or intelligent. Even the mere acceptance of its existence is often not enough.

When I was 15, I suffered traumatic bullying at school. So much so that I threatened one of my tormentors with a butchers knife in Home Economics. The abuse was daily and every time I opened my mouth someone was there to comment on how I sounded, how I acted and even at times what I said. Nothing stopped it so I stopped talking, trusted no one and found solace in books, the library and places I kind of felt accepted. But it never stopped it. I found my voice in drama and film making and tried to make friends, but at times the abuse was so strong that there was never enough to drown out the noise. This bullying coupled with a fairly traumatic childhood, the absence of my father all combined in a moment of sheer turmoil that the led me to the only choice I thought I had. I contemplated suicide.

One night I waited for my mother to leave the house for a weekend away and lined up every pill and vitamin I could find. I was determined to end the noise, the words that replayed over and over again, the lies I told myself and the doubt, fear and guilt. The shame. Was what they were saying right? How did someone else have the right to determine who I was?

I sat for what seemed like hours with the bottle of rancid rum and pills all lined up, but even though I was determined to sleep my depression away, I decided against it. Something inside me said “No”.

A week later a friend showed me, The Fisher King. Robin plays a man who lost his wife in a tragic incident and is found by a radio DJ who was unable to stop that incident from happening. Robins character Parry is so “disturbed” he thinks that he is a knight of the round table on a quest to find the Holy Grail. What spoke to me was the fact that the DJ , played by Jeff Bridges was suicidal and somehow finds Parry and decides to “save” him, but in the end he saves himself. It spoke to me. I’m not saying it saved my life, but it spoke to me on a deeper level.

Robin created a character that was certifiably insane and maniacally crazy that the moments of seriousness and reflection were subtle, inducing an emotional connection to the tragedy suffered by his character.

“It begins with the king as a boy, having to spend the night alone in the forest to prove his courage so he can become king. Now while he is spending the night alone he's visited by a sacred vision. Out of the fire appears the Holy Grail, symbol of God's divine grace. And a voice said to the boy, "You shall be keeper of the grail so that it may heal the hearts of men." But the boy was blinded by greater visions of a life filled with power and glory and beauty. And in this state of radical amazement he felt for a brief moment not like a boy, but invincible, like God, so he reached into the fire to take the grail, and the grail vanished, leaving him with his hand in the fire to be terribly wounded. Now as this boy grew older, his wound grew deeper. Until one day, life for him lost its reason. He had no faith in any man, not even himself. He couldn't love or feel loved. He was sick with experience. He began to die. One day a fool wandered into the castle and found the king alone. And being a fool, he was simple minded, he didn't see a king. He only saw a man alone and in pain. And he asked the king, "What ails you friend?" The king replied, "I'm thirsty. I need some water to cool my throat". So the fool took a cup from beside his bed, filled it with water and handed it to the king. As the king began to drink, he realized his wound was healed. He looked in his hands and there was the Holy Grail, that which he sought all of his life. And he turned to the fool and said with amazement, "How can you find that which my brightest and bravest could not?" And the fool replied, "I don't know. I only knew that you were thirsty.

That moment changed me.

I’m not sad that we have lost a talented actor or comedian. I’m not sad that we lost someone who could make us laugh. I’m sad because I have kind of lost a friend, someone who has been with me since I was a child. I lost someone I looked up to and revered, a hero, a man I thought would be the best dad if I had one. A man whose intelligence, wit and wisdom spoke to me far beyond making me want to laugh or cry. Far beyond pictures, characters, his top 20 jokes, one-liners or the best moments from his films. His legacy is far deeper than that for me.

And I will remember him beyond the depression, even though I am sad that depression may have taken his life, like so many in this world.

I have not been able to bring myself to watch the film, Patch Adams, yet, for this reason;

After Patch loses his girlfriend to murder, he calls out to “God” at the edge of a cliff, contemplating suicide:

“So what now, huh? What do you want from me? Yea, I could do it. We both know you wouldn't stop me. So answer me, please. Tell me what you're doing. Okay, let's look at the logic. You create man. Man suffers enormous amounts of pain. Man dies. Maybe you should have had just a few more brainstorming sessions prior to creation. You rested on the seventh day, maybe you should have spent that day on compassion.”

Patch ends the conversation saying, “You know what? You're not worth it.”

I just wish Robin could have remembered that in his moment of despair.

To me, Robin is the echelon of the oddities, the weirdos and the forgotten. He proved that you could be a funny, short, furry guy and be successful. I looked at him and saw myself. Not as funny, god no, but I saw someone that was OK being himself. I suppose he's a lil responsible for me being the way I am. I saw a man that could be loud and reserved, hilarious and flamboyant, smart and weird and very OTT and figured that if he could be OK with that, maybe I could be too. Yet it still took me 20 years to find that acceptance. 20 years to stop thinking about what other people thought and be OK that I was a little flamboyant (OK a lot) and it had nothing to do with sexuality, and that I could use humour to make people happy, give of myself freely and without reward or expectation. It took me 20 years, a journey through religious Christianity and a cult, the loss of family and friends, the failure of relationships and a near mental breakdown to arrive at a place where I was safe in the knowledge of who I was. Sure, I will always suffer depression, anxiety and at times will be controlled by my emotions, but I recognise the triggers, know what support I need and have people I can rely on. Not all people who suffer have this. Some suffer in silence.

Life ain’t easy. But I'm still standing. No matter what I have been through, I still stand. And you will too.

“You’ll have bad times, but it’ll wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention too.”

~ Good Will Hunting

Thank you, Mr William’s. Rest in peace.

Reach out if you know of someone who fights with the black dog in their life. There are only two options in this battle, winning or losing and sometimes we need help to fight.