Oscar-winning comic actor Robin Williams tried the coping
thing. Apparently, it didn’t work. Reports are that he committed suicide
yesterday. My mother mentioned Williams’ death after she watched one of those
morning shows where the hosts have a coffee mug Superglued to their hands. (Are
they sponsored by Folger’s?)
“Robin Williams died.” That was it. She went back to sipping
her own cup of coffee.
That left me to surmise the cause of death. And, sadly, I
made the assumption that most of us make when a celebrity who isn’t
particularly old dies. “He’d gone back to rehab recently,” I said.
“Yes.” Again, that was it. My endlessly chatty mother had
gone tight-lipped. A first. No rambling Girl Guide speech about the evils of
drugs, no judgment about fame and all the bad in liberal Hollywood, no wistful
statement like, “He seemed like such a nice young man when he was Mork.”
She let the drugs assumption stand. My mother held back.
Depression is still a hush-hush word.
And I know what she was thinking. Robin Williams had depression and killed himself. My son doesn’t need
to hear that. Don’t put those thoughts back in his head.
Because if I suddenly want to revisit a childhood game, let
it be a round of Follow the Leader with Robin Williams. The man and I were
never united in some sort of Jonestown pact. I couldn’t even sit through a full
episode of his last sitcom, the unfortunately named The Crazy Ones.
There is no connection.
Except in my mother’s mind.
