A Quick Letter to Robin Williams

Robin Williams, I know you’re gone now, but I wanted to tell you something.

Your jokes and movies made me so happy during times in my life where everything was dark.  In many ways you and I are similar; we both make people happy sometimes at the expense of our own happiness.  Hearing that you passed really kicked my butt, man.  I wish that you and I could have become friends so that when you were down I could have given you a hug and said “hey man, come on.  forget this.  let’s go laugh this off and we’ll both feel better.”

There are so many people in this business that are just like you, Robin Williams.  We love to make people happy.  But then at the end of the day, sometimes there’s nothing to make the laughmakers laugh.  It’s a great tragedy of life.  As I get older, there are more of those great tragedies of life that come and go, things that we have to become accustomed to simply due to their permanence and inalterability.  There are so many things in life that we don’t realize are permanent unchangeable facts of life, like depression, like suicide, cancer, anxiety, exhaustion, alcoholism, addiction…  the list goes on and on, especially in our beloved industry.

I’m gonna miss you, man.  I’m so sorry that we didn’t get to be friends.

JimOnLight

___

If you’re a Robin Williams kind of guy or girl and you need a hug, drop me an email, ok?  I can’t take another friend or good person leaving us like this anymore.  There’s also the Suicide Prevention Hotline if you’re feeling like there isn’t another way.  I can assure you that there are myriad other ways.  Please believe me.  There are other ways, and if you need, I will put a panel of huggers together and we will hug this shit out of your mind.  We’ll do it together.

We can do it together.