Loving Robin Williams

Rev. Meg Rily writes about her response to Robin William’s death.  It’s a sweet perspective of why we can feel so saddened by the death of someone “we don’t really know.”  We’re sad because, in a limited but important way, we really do know them.

My Facebook community, at least a significant part of it, is reeling from the suicide of Robin Williams. None of us would deny what one person wrote: "People! This is a celebrity! We don't know him! Let's talk about people we do know!" Undeniable. He was a celebrity, not a personal friend. And yet, it turns out we need to process this together. We do care. We do feel that, in some real way, that we knew him, and our hearts are broken.

Here's what I knew immediately when suddenly he was gone: I loved him. Not the characters he played, some of whom I loved too, but the man I intuited behind those characters. The man. I loved him because I always felt his generosity as a comedian and an actor, I loved even the pain that so obviously was part of who he was, pain that he struggled mightily to transform into humor and joy. I loved the way he reached out to the world with everything he had, and gave it to away.