Missing Robin Williams

The thing I'm noticing most now, four days after  he died, is that everyone I've talked to, everyone who has written about him, whether we actually knew him or not, felt a sense of kinship with Robin Williams. I know, logically, I felt a kinship with the characters he played. If anything, I loved the writers who wrote those roles.

Yet he chose them, the roles. And he brought them to life in a way that no one else could. I've been binge-watching his movies. Today it was Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society. In both of these movies Robin Williams plays a role model for all of us who need to find a way to survive in a world where our individuality and vitality is shamed, where we are misunderstood, kept small with physical and emotional abuse.

The younger characters in these films learn to follow their own hearts, despite the threat of alienation. The teacher, Mr. Keating and the shrink, Sean Maguire provide a map. And more than even that, they offer themselves as safe havens, where it is okay to just be whoever you are. They offer unconditional love. They offer the understanding of a fellow outsider in a world where conformity is regarded above all else.

I love Robin Williams (and miss him like the father my own could never be) because I am a misfit. Growing up, I was told in so many ways that I did not fit, that my not fitting was wrong, and that I should feel ashamed. Mr. Keating gave me a desk to stand on, so I could see the world from a different perspective. Maybe being a misfit was not a bad thing. Maybe it was a gift. Sean Maguire looked at me with so much love and understanding and told me over and over again that the abuse I suffered was not my fault. It was not my fault. It was never my fault.

I keep finding articles and blogs that have used his death as a platform to raise consciousness about depression. That's a good thing. But it's not what I want right now. I just want to grieve what, for me, is a grave, personal loss. I never met him. But I desperately wish I could tell him how grateful I am for his courage in being the captain of the misfits, a team I am so proud to play on. I'm grateful that he was here for a short time. My heart is broken for his pain. And I already miss him so much.