Goodbye Robin Williams

This post might be a little all over the place, so please try to follow along if you can...

So the world has lost Robin Williams.  Mrs. Doubtfire, Patch Adams, Sean Maguire, The genie in the bottle, Armond Goldman, Dr. Kosevich, John Keating, Peter pan, Mork, Popeye, and Alan Parrish.

I have grown up with Robin Williams, I have laughed with him, I've cried with him, I've seen his immense talent to make others feel.  I've read the stories about his struggles with Depression and Alcohol and drugs, and I know all too well, how important mental health is, and how some find mood altering drugs is the only way they find peace in their overly active brains.  Yet here was a man who didn't sit on his talent.  He went out day in and day out and brought the best out of others, even when he struggled so to bring the best out of himself.

The world will seem a bit less boisterous without his voice booming.  Peter Pan has left Neverland.  There's no Jeanie in the bottle, no Mork for our Mindy, and how fitting was his last name in Jumanji, Alan, ....Parrish.

There's a lot of different ideas about suicide as far as religion goes, Christians believe it to be a mortal sin, and a one way ticket to hell, while other religions encourage suicide bombers and believe there to be GLORY in it.  I don't want to believe that God, or whomever you may worship, Allah, Buddah, Mohammed, can't see the difference between someone who dies, and someone who JUST can't bear live anymore.

That's what I think happens when someone decides it's time to go.  I just believe that it's the ultimate surrender of one's self.  For some reason, I can't help but think of this scripture when I think about Robin Williams' death:  "I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith."

I don't want to condone suicide by any means, but I have to believe that when your life is basically hell on earth, when you can endure no more, perhaps a person feels they have run the full distance, and they just want to go home, to the big house in the sky.  I don't pretend to know everything, but I know suffering when I see it, I've seen it all too well, and too many times over.  I've seen in in people that I love....and it never ceases to break my heart.  Mental illness, in it's many forms and various facets makes us do things we don't want to do, see things in a way we don't want to see them, and feel like there's no other choice, when staring down the barrel of your own mortality, failures, defeats....

I cannot fathom Robin Williams going to hell.  I don't WANT to believe that God would forsake him because of his demons.  I like to think that God made Robin Williams and knew how troubled his heart was, and would take that into consideration when leaving earth.  Surely a god of Love and Mercy could see that.

I know this goes against everything that is said about Suicide in the christian world, but I don't pretend to  believe that it's all as cut and dried as sometimes the good book says.  And I want to believe that A God of Love, and a God of mercy also is a god of Laughter and a God of appreciation.  Robin Williams was human.  With human shortcomings, human weakness, human will, just like the rest of us.  Robin Williams was like a little ray of sunshine on earth.  He gave all of himself for the amusement of others.  He knew no bounds when it came to making others smile, he threw it all out there, no fear, no restrictions, he performed with all the fiber of his being.

A guy my mother knows recently attempted suicide.  He shot himself in the midst of a fight with his wife.  He was in a coma, presumed to be a vegetable for the rest of his life, or until the machines were unplugged.  But he's back at work now.  Why do some people succeed, while others slip away?  I have to believe it's to end a life of suffering.  Through suffering some feel closer to God, while others feel further away.  Those who remain close, go, while others are sent back to try again perhaps?

I read this today while researching the origins of "ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG"....it said:  THE GOOD DIE YOUNG - " (Whom the gods love dies young; Best go first.) The long history of the saying began with the ancient version, 'Whom the gods love dies young,' and a touching story of how the proverb originated. As told by the Greek historian Herodotus in 'History' (c. 445 B.C.), the story concerns two especially favored youths who, replacing two missing oxen, hitched themselves to a cart and carried their mother to a festival for the goddess Hera. At the temple, the grateful mother asked Hera to reward her sons with the greatest gift anyone might receive, whereupon her sons lay down to sleep and never woke again."

Patch Adams Said:  "What's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy gentlemen. If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference."

Robin Williams, if you can hear me, or just feel the words being written, I think it's very clear that the world has not been indifferent to you.  The world grieves your loss, and I can't speak for anyone else, but I can say this, I pray for your soul, for it to soar into the heavens, where you can make God smile, and entertain all the children up there who have went before their parents, all the wives and husbands who went first....and perhaps be the Angel, who comes to others in their deepest darkest moment of despair and says to them:  "Hey, We can head on down to the maternity ward. You know those chicks put out."

Because laughter in the face of darkness...is a lesson you LIVED, and breathed, I suspect, every. single. day.

Rest in Peace Robin-Patch Adams-Peter Pan-Mork-Popeye-Alan Parrish-Mrs. Doubtfire-Williams.  

From this day forward, when I hear the thunder booming from the heavens, I'm going to imagine that's you making God Belly Laugh at something you said to him.

"You say yes, I say no

You say stop and I say go go go, oh no

You say goodbye and I say hello

Hello hello

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello

Hello hello

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello"

Post by Fox & Friends.