Just a few of thoughts I wanted to share, following the death of Robin Williams. Take them as you will.
Really, it’s okay to honor a man who we welcomed into our homes for over 30 years to entertain us, make us laugh, and bring a little bit of happiness to what can be a stressful, broken and sometimes sad world. Yes, there are millions of people who suffer from mental illness and who have died by suicide. No, we do not interrupt our regularly scheduled programming with breaking news to alert the world of their death. Why don’t we do this? Because we didn’t pay for matinees, a coke and popcorn to be entertained by their goofiness or to laugh at their jokes and antics. We didn’t rent their VHS’ and eventually their DVDs, or tune in to their TBS all day marathons. Does this make them any less important or valuable as people? Absolutely not! It just makes Robin Williams and others like him, different, and that’s okay. It seems like every time someone famous dies and are celebrated by the fans who enjoyed their art and craft reminisce about their life, the uptight purists start trying to guilt everyone else for honoring them while the millions who have died like them go unmentioned. Robin Williams was famous, worldwide, for more than three decades and though many of his fans never met him or knew him personally, they shared a connection to him through his characters. Do the millions actually go unnoticed though? When anyone receives a call about the death of a family member or friend, it interrupts all planned activities, it brings our world to a halting stop. Do these supposedly ‘unmentioned’ people not have funerals and memorials where their friends, family, churches, and communities remember them and honor their life? I believe it is safe to say that the celebration of life for those ‘unmentioned’ people, who are so often used as pawns for the drivers of guilt, is as big as their life was. As much as anyone is known, loved, and appreciated, they are missed in equal proportions, if not greater. Robin Williams was not perfect, we all know that, but he was known, loved and appreciated by many and therefore the mourning of his death and the celebration of his life is expressed by many. So, if you need permission, here you go….Celebrate the life of great people who have brought happiness into your life and impacted for the good.