When Robin Flew Away: The Death of Robin Williams

Updated on February 16, 2024

On my personal scale of the sad and unthinkable, Robin Williams' death by suicide is off the scale. In fact, on its way to being off the scale, it flattened the scale, smashed the scale, and obliterated the scale under morbid, coarse, repugnant tonnage. 

Image source: stockadobe.com

I say all that as a lowly fan, a woman whose existence was unknown to him, a woman who imagined that he was, in some way, ethereal. 

My favorite Williams film, and one of my favorite movies ever, is The Fisher King. In it, Williams plays Parry, an unhoused man with mental illness who lies on his back in Central Park, nude, watching the clouds. 

I saw The Fisher King only once because I was so emotionally wrung out by it that I never quite had it in me to watch it again. Just thinking about Parry, so vulnerable, an innocent among monsters, nearly makes me sob again all these many years later. And it seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that there was a lot of Williams in Parry - or maybe it's the other way around.

When he died, people said they were shocked but not surprised, that there often seemed to be "something about him." My inept description of that "something" is wistful melancholy, a look I liked to think meant that he knew more than all of us mere mortals combined, and that the knowledge weighed heavy. Sometimes that look came with a faint smile, a barely perceptible upward curve of the lips, a smile that belied resignation. 

At other times, he was the impish, pesky child you couldn't bring yourself to punish, and, when the role warranted it, he looked absolutely chilling. All of which unearths a question: When Williams looked in the mirror, which Williams looked back?

When Robin Williams was on, he was very, very on, as though God had strapped an Acme rocket to his backside and lit the fuse Himself. How his mouth kept up with his mind is beyond me, as is any grasp of how he improvised so brilliantly.

At first, I had a romanticized notion of William's death, that he had figured out the meaning of life, identified what lies beyond our universe, and, unlike Parry, grew weary of clouds. I told myself that after analyzing the sad reality of this situation, Williams concluded that it was time for him to go. 

I know now that Lewy body dementia was revealed via autopsy. I know now that he was very ill in his body and his mind, and I know now that that was what led to his death and not some cosmic, dark, angelic, insight beyond the grasp of Earthbound brains. But any way you look at it, Robin Williams cashed in his millions in chips and left the rest of us flat broke. 

Some pundit asked what Williams' suicide would mean to his legacy. I once thought that question was ridiculous. William's death was a separate issue, and his body of work would always stand. 

Until, for me, it didn't. 

Because I soon realized that I could no longer watch Robin Williams movies and that I could barely tolerate even brief clips. Almost 10 years later, I still can't, and trying to just feels too damn sad. Maybe that's a different kind of legacy, and if so, it too feels too damn sad. 

I wish Robin Williams could come back healthy, happy, and adlibbing an Elizabethan blue streak, but he can't. As for me, I have children to praise, bad poetry to write, and a million other things that tether me soundly and happily to life. It seems I like having an Earthbound brain. 

Besides, he took Parry with him, and someone has to watch the clouds. 

  

Bridge Years

The day that would have been my mother's 93rd birthday passed in January. The second anniversary of her death fell in February. She is still the first thing to slip into my consciousness at waking and the last to cross the backs of my eyelids, with the good and the bad and the slights and the love, just before I sleep. 

I have two kids in their upper teens, and lately I'm comparing my mother's situation when I was a young adult to the ones I face with my children. As I write this, my daughter is taking a "bridge year," in her case, a break between high school and college. Like many young people, she’s anxious about setting sail and hesitates over her options, even though I point out - more often than is helpful - that she doesn’t have to declare a major until later. Next year, if she's ready, she'll start at community college then head to Michigan State. That's the loose plan anyway, and it's given us a lot of time together. When we laugh, we are so like my mother and I, all those years ago.

Though I lived on campus and loved dorm life, I was home much of the time. I expected my parents to pick me up on Friday afternoons and take me home for the weekend - almost every weekend - a three-hour round trip. On Sunday nights, as though for the last time, I'd hug and kiss them and shout goodbyes, and they'd be gone - until they came back five days later. If they felt even the slightest discontent at doing all that driving, it never showed. All I saw were two happy, tired people. They would ask me how my week had been, and I, a merry egotist, would spend the next two days telling them. Much of that time was spent curled up next to my mother in my parents' bed, spilling the tea about all the things my father would rather not hear. We'd lie in that bed laughing and talking until my bone-weary dad would come in to say I really should be in my own bed.    

As to bridge years, I took one, too - between earning a BA and earning an income. My parents approved, provided I used that year to develop my writing skills, skills I'd just recently discovered. I'd sit at our dining table, portable Brother typewriter before me, plagiarizing a book on Laurel and Hardy. The plagiarizing wasn't intentional, and I'm sure my manuscript contained some embryo of an original thought. Still, if they ever peeked over my shoulder while I typed, my parents must have slipped away afterward to weep.  

I landed a full-time job as an employment agent when I was 23. I had gone to an agency for help finding a job and was hired on the spot. And that job proved to be a keystone in my career, so the bridge in my bridge year didn't collapse after all, except that I didn't need writing skills until much later. 

The other night I dreamed that I was an adult living with my parents when it occurs to me that I really should get a job. My mother asks if that means I'll be getting my own place, too. I tell her that I'll live at home while I train for the ideal job, and even after, since it will take time to save a down payment on a house. Upon learning that I plan to move out eventually, my mother sounds lighter than she has in years as she chats on the phone, sharing the news with friends. Later in the dream, I'm telling my father that he is absolutely correct to throw out all the knick-knacks and curio shelves before he redecorates the house, and then I question his choice of wall paint. I honestly did dream that dream exactly as described and hope I wasn't that big a jerk in real life. 

My mother and I were always close and are even now, in our own way, since some days she feels as real to me as if she were alive. As she lay dying, I drove almost 600 miles to surprise her. When I walked into her room, it was late, the lights dim, and two aides were struggling to make her more comfortable. They weren't struggling because she was hard to please; my mother was unfailingly appreciative and expressed her gratitude generously. But there wasn't a part of her body that wasn't breaking or broken. She was so ill and trying so hard to communicate her needs, that she didn't see me slip in. I sat by the window and when one of the aides looked up, I signaled her to keep quiet. When they left, my mother lay there, eyes closed. 

"Hi, Mom," I said in my best hushed-but-happy tones. It seemed that even a voice, too loud or harsh, might tear the tender body in the bed. She opened her eyes, looked toward me and started to cry. I cried too. I cried harder when, she said, "Oh, Mom. Mom." 

I gathered her in my arms and kissed the top of her head.

"It's Teece," I murmured against her hair. "I love you. I'm here now. I'm here."

"Oh, I'm so glad," she sobbed, and I wondered if she minded that my tears had wet her scalp.  You wonder a lot of odd things when you hold a dying parent. I doubt she minded, though. Very few things had ever bothered her. It took something as big as death to trip her up. For a while, I regretted telling her it was me when she thought I was her mother, but I think for her, by then I was child and mother. Besides, this was her bridge year, and who am I to say she didn't see her mother?    

Now that I've thrashed all this around in my head a few thousand times, I've vowed that the next time someone tells me about their kid who's studying abroad, nailing down a second master's, I will proudly share that my child might be living with me for years. 

Playing the Sympathy Card

There are still days when I can't believe she's gone, my mother who was so full of life - until, suddenly, she wasn't. And one of the harshest truths about grieving is that no matter how debilitated, laid to waste, and torn apart you feel, the world keeps spinning.

Image by Teece Aronin

When my mother died, it was like being dropped in cold, waist-deep water and having to get ready to run. Run and get paperwork to the lender so I'd close on my new house on time; run and grab my laptop so I could pay the credit card bill before it was late; run and get the permission slip in to my kid's choir teacher so my kid could go on the class trip. First World problems, I admit, but still slogging, wet and weighty burdens when you're grieving. 

When all this was too much for me to bear, I'd play my sympathy card and pray that it bought me a little time, a small break, a minute to catch my breath.

I was pulled over by a State Trooper about a week after my mother's death, and I couldn't help it - as soon as my window went down, words came blurting out of me about how I'd just lost my mother, how I must have been distracted, and how I could barely think of my own name right now, much less read a speed sign. Before I knew it, I was on my way with a gentle warning to slow down. 

Then there was a request for paperwork from one of the outlying parties associated with the escrow on the house I was buying. "Please, may I have a few days on this? My mother died about a week ago." I can't remember the woman's exact reply but the gist was: "I'm sorry for your loss, but we really need this done as soon as possible." We ended up closing on the house two weeks early so I'm thinking maybe she's never lost a mother or maybe she never had a mother in the first place.

When the agent handling my homeowner's insurance made a similar request, I played my sympathy card again. I could hardly navigate my way through the grocery store, let alone whatever his request was. Steve (Free-thinking) Freemire leaped into action. He expressed his condolences on the death of my mother, very sincere ones, it seemed to me, and spoke of his own similar loss. Then he told me not to worry about the paperwork and that he would take care of it. Not even, "You Can Have a Few Days," but "I Will Do it For You."

He was one of the few people who not only accepted my sympathy card but placed a little kiss on its cover before offering it back. Those are the people you remember, the ones who when you're going through hell actually do something to help. 

It's been three-and-a-half months since my mother "went away," leaving me the world's oldest orphan. I don't use my sympathy card anymore because my mind is almost as normal now as it ever was, which many would argue, wasn't close to normal ever. 

But to anyone who accepted my sympathy card when it was all I had to offer, especially Free-thinking Freemire, thank you. 









  

Juny, We Hardly Knew Ye

Juniper was a Christmas present from me to my daughter, Syd, who joyously picked her out from among all the other guinea pigs at the pet shop. She was still a baby guinea pig and quite small, even as guinea pigs go. She was a funny-looking, short-haired, furry piece of patchwork with white, black, and tan splotches and shiny, beady little eyes.

Juniper

As far as Syd was concerned, nothing was too good for Juny, and with her own money, she bought Juny a roomy cage with a ramp, plenty of toys, and nutritious little treats. Juny, who was no dope, quickly learned on which side her bread was buttered and whistled merrily whenever Syd walked in the room.

But I don't think Juny saw merely a meal ticket in Syd. She seemed to genuinely like Syd, who took a hands-on approach in caring for Juny, including plenty of time exploring the apartment, snuggling in Syd's lap, or nestled in Syd's gentle hands. 

The other day, I was at work and got the kind of call parents dread, the kind where you know it's one of your kids. All you hear is sobbing on the other end, and you can't understand what they're saying. It was Syd, who finally managed to tell me that Juny was dying. 

In the car, my mind flashed back three years to when Syd and her brother, Jon were in the park with their pet rabbit, and a dog snatched it off Syd's lap and killed it right there in front of both kids. It took all of us days to even begin to move past that, and even now it's upsetting to think about. I wondered if Syd was flashing back, too.

At a red light, I consulted my phone and got the address for the closest emergency animal hospital. I called Syd en route and told her to wrap Juny in a towel and get ready to come to the car. When I saw Syd, my heart broke. She was chalk white, her eyes were swollen, and she was holding a tiny bundle close to her heart.

As soon as Syd was in the car and buckled in, I peeled out of there, and once I felt I could avert my eyes from traffic, I looked at Juny lying in the towel, face poking out, nose pale. I reached over and brushed my finger along her cheek.

"What is going on with you, Juny? What are you trying to prove?" As I spoke these words to this so sick guinea pig, I kept my voice very soft because I had this idiotic feeling that she could understand and would think I really was blaming her for putting us to all this trouble and making us feel so awful. And then, of course, I started to bawl.

"Mom, please don't cry," Syd said, her huge, teary, saucer eyes staring hard at me. "I'll lose it if you cry. Please stop." So, I focused on the road and tried to do as she asked. I didn't do it very well.

"I wonder what happened," I said, reaching over again to stroke the little face.

"Maybe I didn't clean her cage often enough," my daughter said, and shame at the very idea hung in her voice. "When I saw her, I took her out of the cage and held her and kept saying, 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.'"

"No, Syd. You took very good care of her. It wasn't anything like that."

And then, as it usually does when one comforts children with dead or dying pets, the question of an afterlife came up. But I was the one who needed reassurance.

"I think Juny's headed someplace nice, don't you?" I asked.

Syd's answer was emphatic. "The Rainbow Bridge." She said this as if God Himself consulted her before commissioning it.

"The what?"

"The Rainbow Bridge," she repeated. "It's a bridge where pets go when they die to wait for their owners. When their owners die, they meet at the bridge and cross over together into Heaven."

"Oh, Syd, that sounds like a really great place," I said. "I'm sure that's where Juny's headed."

We arrived at the hospital, rushed Juny in, and were immediately whisked to a room. I was handed a form to fill out while Syd sat, distraught in a chair and Juny lay motionless on the exam table, still wrapped in the towel.

The vet scooted into the room, bent over Juny, and laid a stethoscope against the tiny rib cage. "What happened?" she asked, and since she seemed to be asking Juny, neither Syd nor I answered. We didn't know what happened anyway, so we wouldn't have been much help. The vet straightened up and said, "I think she's gone."

"You don't need to fill out the rest of that form," the vet tech said, relieving me of the form and the clipboard. Suddenly, and more than anything, I, who hate forms, wanted to fill it out because filling out a form implied that Juny still had a chance.

"Would you like us to dispose of her?" asked the tech.

"I don't know. What do people usually do?" I asked.

"Well, some people take them home and bury them," she replied. "Or we can have her cremated and give you back the ashes."

"How much would that cost?" I asked the tech who went away to look up the price. While she was out of the room, I walked to Juny and gently pulled back the towel. 

'How could a newly dead guinea pig look so different from her living self?' I pondered. A spark was gone, some spark beyond motion and breath. Even her fur seemed duller and her body flatter.

I'm sure there are dozens of physiological reasons for all of that and that one would have to be a giant optimist or a pure idiot to find reassurance in Juny's new corporeal state. I'm hoping that it was optimism, but know that at times, I have been a pure idiot.

So, I'm not saying I took Juny's physical transformation as proof that a spirit once inhabited that little form, but I still felt reassured. I stroked the little face some more as if stroking it could give Juny comfort. But Juny was probably already hightailing it to the Rainbow Bridge and couldn't care less if I was stroking her face.

The tech came back, consulting a paper on her clipboard. She was searching for the price category covering Junies weighing less than 12 ounces.

"That would be $100," she said, glancing up at me.

One-hundred dollars? The sum rang in my head. One-hundred dollars to cremate one little guinea pig, a guinea pig that was small even as guinea pigs go? A guinea pig that only cost $40 when she was alive?

"Okay, that's what we'll do," I said, handing her my debit card. But really, one-hundred dollars?

"Mom," Syd whispered, "that's too expensive. I don't mind burying her." But I couldn't expect her to bury Juny, and I sure didn't want to do it. And we'd have to get permission from the apartment managers and then buy or borrow a shovel. I just didn't have it in me to do all that.

"It's okay, Syd. This way you'll always have her with you." The tech left the room then came back, loaded down with little boxes.

"These are your choices for storing the ashes," she said. 

With the exception of a little coffin-shaped box, each tiny container looked suspiciously like a cookie tin from our local dollar store. It crossed my mind to offer up my own cookie tin if it would cut down on the cost, but I chose the high ground and kept my mouth shut.

"Which one do you want, Syd?" I asked.

"That one," said my daughter, pointing to one I had somehow overlooked. It was actually a lovely little metal box and Syd did well to have chosen it.

"Oh, that's a nice one," commented the tech. "That's the Rainbow Bridge design. I like that one, too." 

If the Rainbow Bridge was famous enough that there was even an "urn" named after it, maybe God really had commissioned it.

"The cremation people will come here for her on Monday and you can pick her up again on Thursday." 

Pick her up again on Thursday. The tech said it as though we were just sending Juny out to be groomed, and she'd be back on Thursday all spruced up.

"Syd, if it would help, I'll buy you another guinea pig tonight," I offered.

"I don't know, Mom," she said. "I think I need to wait a while; not just for myself but out of respect for Juny."

And so it was that we came to wait for . . . three . . . whole . . . days. When you're used to having something in your life that you can scoop up and love on a whim, there's a hole left when it's gone. Syd picked out a Netherland dwarf rabbit. So far, she has yet to name him officially, but his working moniker is Prince Charming. He is rather dashing, especially when we try to catch him and put him in his cage. So maybe that's the name she'll keep.

So, as Prince Charming settles in, we still remember Juny. If I'd thought she felt well enough to listen on the way to the vet, I'd have given her a heads up about our other "pals with paws" who'd gone before her, and some advice for when she met them at the Rainbow Bridge.

I'd have said, "Bill and Clawdia are good cats, but Bill will think himself too cool to show any interest in you at first, and Clawdia gets lost easily, so don't let her wander far from the bridge. Thumper is the rabbit who had that unfortunate run-in with a husky, so I doubt he'll be hanging out near the dogs. Then again, he probably has some kind of double jeopardy protection in the afterlife and can't get hurt again, but who could blame him if he steers clear? And please tell him we're sorry he got stuck with such an unoriginal name, but he already had that name when we adopted him."

Some might think it silly to take the death of a guinea pig so seriously, or to write about it with such gravity. To those people I say it's probably been too long since you last held such a tiny creature in your hands, or heard it whistle when you walked into the room.