What's right is what's left if you do everything else wrong.

I've tried to wrap my head around this several times today--Robin Williams passed away.

I don't know what I even want this post to be, or even what I intend for it to be. Everything is so fresh. Everything is so confusing.

There is a sort of social stigma that comes with a celebrity dying. People dig, people pry, people feel the need to point out situations or events that, in all honestly, are just not appropriate for the time. It's bound to happen, it has happened and will continue to happen and after a few weeks, the news of it all fades away from the media but for those, however they may have been effected by it, it will leave a lasting memory, whether it is good or it is bad. Everyone will have an opinion--but this is not my point.

I've never been so upset about a persons death that I didn't know before. How many times did you see that sentence today? How many times did you think that today? It was more than once, I'm sure. It was one of the first things I felt, one of the first things I thought and one of the first things that I said, once I was able to comprehend it all. His death stunned me. I cried. I cried several times. It crept up on me, and continues to do so.

I didn't personally know him. This seems silly to say out loud, or to even think. But is it? I'm writing this post to try to figure it out, because quite honestly, I have never felt this kind of grief before. To be sad when someone we do not know dies, is in itself a form of grief, but this just feels different. The question is--why?

When I was little, when I was a teenager and even up to today, whenever I thought of Robin Williams, I didn't have just one particular feeling flood over me. I had memories. Memories that were rich and full of laughter--I remember bonding with my brother for the first time as kids as we watched Mrs. Doubtfire over and over on VHS ("A run-by fruiting" is still one of the funniest lines in cinematic history). I remember staying up late watching his stand up on HBO and laughing until I was crying, out of breath, thinking that this man was a comedic genius and there was nothing he couldn't do. The lesson of love and hope from Hook. How to live life to your fullest no matter how much time you have left from Jack. What my verse will be from Dead Poets Society. You can't learn everything from books, you have to live life to experience it from Good Will Hunting. To this day I still watch every single one of those movies and marvel at the lessons that are taught (which older, I can now appreciate even more) and still genuinely laugh at a joke I've heard a hundred times. The amazing thing about all of this? Everyone is feeling this today. Maybe not the exact examples, but the lessons are there. We may not have realized it until today, but what an impression that man made. I truly hope, deep down, that he knew that.

The words he spoke may have not been his own, he was acting after all, but he had a way with the words he said.

His life was a staple in mine--many of my childhood memories were of watching his movies or quoting them and I'll never forget that.

"No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world" - Robin Williams

Paul F. Thompkins sums up exactly what I'm trying to convey in a much smaller amount of words:

"There will be much celebration, in the coming weeks and months, of Robin Williams’ life and career. But perhaps the best tribute to him would be if we all reached out to the troubled people in our lives and let them know that we are here for them. Because Robin Williams was there for us."

O Captain! My Captain!

-Megan