Depression Lies: What Robin Williams Meant to Me
So. Robin Williams. Dammit. The first Robin Williams movie I ever saw was Mrs. Doubtfire. I was 13, my parents were getting a divorce, and my father thought that some related comedy might be healing. He was right. He and I saw a lot of movies together — RW’s and otherwise — throughout my teen years. This was a time when I was angry at my father for the divorce, unhappy at school, and in dire need of something uplifting. I won’t say that RW was my only solace, or the only reason that my father and I were able to rebuild our relationship, but he sure helped. My father loved RW. They were close in age. My father was a pastoral counsellor; RW often played psychologists and doctors. RW sometimes even sported a beard that made him look a lot like my father. I think the reason RW’s work resonated so much with my father, and with me as well, was his wistfulness. He was a comic, but behind the comedy was always something a little sad. Now, of course, we know he couldn’t fight it back any longer.