Dear Robin Williams

Dear Robin Williams,

As I look out the window, wiping the tears off my face, I see that the clouds are moving north and slightly west. Even the clouds know that today is a fucked up day and nothing again will ever be the same. I just read the news. Well, about 30 minutes ago. We all thought it was a hoax. We hoped it was a hoax. But it isn’t. You’re gone. You’re actually gone.

Friends of mine, grown women and men, are also in tears. We’re all feeling pain and loss. Bewilderment and confusion. No. We think. Not another one. And certainly not you. You’re one too many.

You made us laugh. First, as Mork. Then as Aladin‘s Genie. As Mrs. Doubtfire.  As Armand in The Bird Cage.

You made us feel. As Adrian in Good Morning, Vietnam. As John Keating in Dead Poet Society. As Perry in The Fisher King. As Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. And in over 100 roles over your nearly four decade career.

In the roles where you touched us most, you were the proverbial fish out water. That odd duck that marched to his own beat. The one that at first the masses reject. The one that the in-crowd would never consider as one of their own. The alien. The gay father. The straight father trying to win his family back. The teacher who want to teach his students to think for themselves. And the college professor who believes in the janitor kid who’s too cocky for his own good.

You had this power, as an actor, to walk into any absurd outsider role, within an even more absurd situation, and win your audience over by teaching us that humanity sometimes comes in disguise. That when we stop judging and assuming and pretending that we know the ways of the world, and how people are supposed to be, when we learn to walk the earth with our eyes and and our hearts open, that’s where the humanity will meet us.  That’s where you met us. You, Mr. Williams, taught us to do that.

In a meshugi world, you were the mench.

Between 2013 and 2014, we’ve lost way too many menches. James Gandolfini. Roger Ebert. Philip Seymour Hoffman. And, now you. None of you left us due to natural causes. All of you left way too early. True, your massive collective cultural contribution is a legacy that gave us so much goodness. But I’m going to be selfish right now and say this: I wanted more. I wanted more of your improv scarf routines, where you could, in 30 seconds, create 10 different characters with one piece of fabric. I wanted more Patch Adams tete-a-tete debate between you and Hoffman. I wanted at least one comedy with you and Gandolfini. And I wanted Roger Ebert to review every single one of these films and tell me how amazing all of you are in them.

Our world is in a frightening state right now. And we turned to each of you to give us the certainty of great performances. You see, at a time when we can’t count on the world, we could always count on you.  Your nervous energy. The twinkle in your eyes. The genius that ran through your Chicago DNA.

Back in fall 1996, when I still lived in your birth city, while one business trip to Jersey, I once stood behind you in an airport food line. I had no idea it was you until I saw the clues: The Mrs. Doubtfire jacket and the Jimanji bag. Or was it the other way around? You were twitching a little. Ok, a lot. Not very tall. I wasn’t quite sure it was still you, but then I leaned in, on the side, and saw your very hairy arms and very expensive eye glasses. I so wanted to say hello. But I was star-struck. Standing in line behind Mork. As small as your body frame was, your presence was massive.

Today, it’s more massive than it’s every been. And for all the wrong reasons. I’m listening to The Departed soundtrack writing this and I feel like every single song is about you. The clouds, now darker, still move quickly north, against pattern. Perhaps they’ve moving swiftly to meet you.