I Feel Like I Lost A Friend

     Last night the news broke. Robin Williams has died. OMFG! What did you say? No way, really?  Yes it was really. I felt terrible, I actually shed some tears. I loved this mans works. My friend put a post on Facebook about the time she & I saw him perform live at The Met, at Lincoln Center in NYC. Oh what a show. We had box seats, Sean Penn and Madonna were in the audience that night. It was a fabulous night. I laughed so hard I thought I would crack a rib. We actually had to buy the VHS  tape ( yes kiddies it was a long time back) to hear the jokes we missed. His movies brought me laughter and tears. From Awakenings, to Patch Adams, to Dead Poets Society (a personal fav) to Mrs. Doubtfire. And of course The Birdcage , fosse fosse fosse, twyla, twyla, , lmao. I think he had an amazing sense of timing, he could deliver a line that would give you a chill it was so intense and the next moment have tears of laughter running down your face. The Fischer King, was like that, so wasPatch  Adams. Did you know that Disney actually drew the movie stills around him for Aladdin? At least 75 or 80% of the genie scenes were all ad lib from Robin. An incredible ability to just create off the cuff, and make it take form and shape into something so entertaining.  Yes I feel like I lost a friend because he was so human. In Peter Pan, which is a movie I kind of feel sorry for the make up people who had to wax him smooth (hairy bastard but that's sexy anyway), anyway, he became childlike, he was Armond in The Birdcage. I saw him on the show Inside The Actors Studio, and he spoke about becoming the part he was playing, to be able to stand behind yourself and allow yourself to be free.  Yet behind this loud loveable person, was a man who was sensitive. Did you know that he was great friends with Christopher Reeve, and actually paid many of his hospital bills when he had the horse riding accident? That he paid for a young girls tuition to Juliard School in NYC? Incredible right. And yet in his mind he couldn't free himself from demons that overtook him. Drugs, alcohol, he could not control. He admitted he had these problems, and admitted to depression also.  But all his fame, all the people he touched, who loved him, he could not take it anymore. The man who wore the clown mask was not able to smile. Until it got too much and he ended it by hanging himself. Does this mean anything special, why not an overdose? I can't imagine it was pleasant, perhaps he didn't think he deserved to just pass out and not wake up. Maybe this was a message to his family that he knew he was causing pain by committing suicide so he had to punish himself too?  We will never know.
I will miss that friend I never met, I hope he is now at peace, his mind at ease, his troubles lifted. Rest In Peace Robin, or should I say, Captain My Captain.