The liar

I've been so saddened to consider Robin Williams' death yesterday. God, what a bright light to be extinguished. I remember him the way that I remember an old friend.

When I was 5, my parents, sisters, and I were living at my grandparent's house in Sacramento, California. This was because Grandma was at stage 4 breast cancer and my mother was helping her as she deteriorated. I remember sitting on the floor, close to my grandparent's television, watching Robin on Mork and Mindy. Even now, I can recollect the feeling that he was somehow my own special person. Over the years, I must have retained that same sense of special ownership and relationship. I wonder how many other people felt the same way. I see the feelings expressed on social media and I think that his impact must be both enormous and personal in the same way it has been huge and personal for me.

Depression is such a fucking liar. Completely powerful. All consuming. It takes beauty and joy. It corrupts even the good memories, convincing you that your happiness was a facade, and that this is the reality. I think the thing that I hate the most about Robin's suicide is knowing that the voice of the liar was the last thing this beautiful and generous man heard.