Goodbye to the Prince of Comedy — Rest in Peace Robin Williams

You can appreciate someone who gives you good advice.

But, someone who makes you laugh, well, that is rare. Especially that deep belly laugh that rises up into uncontrolled laughter, tears and a belly ache when you are done.

Enter, Robin Williams.

Many of us would never have heard of Boulder, Colorado without an alien landing there and starting the whole Nanhu, Nanhu phenomenon.

He made us laugh at him in Mork & Mindy; he made us laugh at ourselves in “Can I Do It ‘Til I need Glasses”; he made us cry in Awakenings; and he made us feel disturbed in Insomnia. He made us remember what important things were really about and woke you up with, “Good Morning Vietnam”!!!

Robin Williams may have been one of the few actors remaining who was still able to count himself amongst the renaissance actors like Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Buster Keaton and Paul Newman.

But mostly, he was endearing to us because he took away the mantle weight of the day and he made us laugh at those things that otherwise weighed us down.

He made us see our lives as much as comic happenstance as deliberate planning.

He was willing to expose his tender underbelly to show us that sometimes laughing really is the best medicine.

Perhaps he will be the catalyst to cause all of us to stop looking at mental illness as anything different than a cold: a malady that can and should be treated. Perhaps his passing can remind us all that depression is not just the blues. Depression is the permanent and unrelenting feeling that nothing you do is going to make it all right again. But, that desperation is as treatable as any virus we treat today.

Sympathy for their loss to Robin William’s children and loves ones.

Bless you Robin Williams. Nanhu, Nanhu, my friend.  And say hello to Orson.