I was twelve years old the first time someone I liked died. It was my favorite comedian at the time, Mitch Hedberg, and I honestly can’t remember how I felt at that exact moment. I remember in the following days there was a sense of confusion--how could he have died? I didn’t know he was sick, I didn’t know about his addiction, how could he be gone? I never saw him live, never got to send him fanmail, never got to tell him “you’re my favorite”--and a lot of surprise, but no sense of loss. I remember thinking that it sucked, but I never cried for him. I was just surprised.
Fast forward about nine years or so, to August 11, 2014.
This I’ll never forget. A punch to the gut. An actual, sickening sense of loss, the feeling that something had been taken away. The feeling that the world had actually changed. How could the death of one man change the entire world? I remember saying “This isn’t real, this isn’t happening, he can’t be dead, he just can’t.” I didn’t believe it at first. I thought it was a cruel joke by a few bored news outlets.
But then it was confirmed. And that night, I cried myself to sleep over a man I’d never met. Because now I knew I’d never have the chance.
I never knew Robin Williams personally. Neither did the millions of fans who mourned him when he died. We didn’t meet him, didn’t know him, weren’t on a first-name basis. But it didn’t make our grief any less “real,” because we knew the Robin Williams that he wanted us to know. I talked to my friends the day after he died, and we all had a personal story relating to something that he had done, some movie he’d been in, that had changed our lives in some way.
For me, it was RV. I saw that movie with my dad, my permanent “bad-movie partner,” and we both loved that film more than either of us thought we would. It was a bonding experience for us, and it came at a time when most girls were scorning their dads for being “too embarrassing” to hang out with. The father-daughter relationship demonstrated in that film cemented what I already knew: that it was okay, really okay, normal even, to love your dad and still not know how to talk to him. But for my dad and I, movie quotes are our “language,” we speak it to each other and we speak it fluently: a quick Back to the Future reference when something goes wrong (“This damn thing doesn’t work at all!”), a bit of Replacements snark when accusing each other of tomfoolery (“A good Christian boy like you would never do nothing like that!”), a little bit of Disney here (“Not yet, Baloo!”), a little Steve Martin there (“Don’t forget to fasten your condom--seatbelt, I meant seatbelt!”). And of course RV was added to the legion of quotable movies. I first saw RV in 2006 and to this day I still answer the phone when my dad calls with a rapid-fire “Yo, my mobile homeboy, what’s trippin’ in the wood?” It’s a little thing, it really is. But it was something that had an impact, however minor. And it still means something to me.
And it’s silly, it’s really silly, but I love to think that wherever Williams is now, he can hear it when those of us who loved his work quote him. I love to think that wherever he is, he knows he’s loved, he knows he’s remembered, he knows he’s missed. I really truly believe that he does. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, maybe it’s faith, but I feel like he hears us, and he knows we miss him, and he knows we still care.
My selfish reaction when an actor I love dies always falls squarely into the “bitter filmmaker” category. When Christopher Lee died, I got teary-eyed thinking of all the movies I will never make with him. I’ll joke about it sometimes; I told my best friend once, “If Ian McKellan dies before I get to work with him, I will have words with God when I get to heaven.” I joke about it because I’m not sure what else to say. Because I know it happens. Celebrities aren’t immune to death. No one is. And what do you say, how do you react, when your favorite actor or singer or comic’s death reminds you of your own mortality?
The hardest part about losing a celebrity idol is that you don’t have license to mourn them the way you do when someone you personally knew dies. If your favorite teacher dies and you cry over their death, people understand. They say comforting (or theoretically comforting) things and bring you food and send you sympathy cards and reassuringly cuddle you as they remind you that the person is in a better place now and they’re watching over you and don’t worry, they loved you too. But when your favorite celebrity dies…it’s almost like you aren’t allowed to be sad, because people will side-eye you when you cry for them. “But you didn’t know them. I mean, yeah, they did some great work, and they’re cool and all, but…” Or they say, “Stop it. You’re being selfish. Think about how their family must feel,” implying that you have no right to be upset because you weren’t married to or related to that person. Or, my personal favorite, the implication that the person somehow deserved it. As in, “Well, Michael Jackson was great, but he was on drugs when he died.” Like he got what was coming to him, and I should feel forewarned instead of sad. And then you feel sad and guilty and alienated because there’s no protocol in place there. It’s almost like the five stages of grief are presumed to not apply here simply because the person being mourned happened to be in a few issues of People magazine.
My boyfriend’s favorite wrestler (well, one of them, I should say) died today. Now, I will warn you all, what I know about “Rowdy” Roddy Piper could probably fit on a mosquito’s toenail, because my only exposure to him was Comic-Con related. Ian made me watch a few of his matches before we went, because he wanted me to have some context, but being a total novice in the world of pro wrestling--again, thanks to Ian; I only started going to matches when he asked me to come with him--I legit had no idea who the hell the guy was. All I knew was that he wore a kilt (which I thought was kind of hot, but don’t tell my boyfriend I said that or he’ll think I want him to wear one too), that he was extremely good at his job, and that he was anti-bullying. Well, that was good enough for me. So when Ian asked if I wanted to come with when he went up to talk to Piper at Motor City Comic-Con my reaction was something along the lines of “well, why the hell not.”
Now, I’ve had a bad experience here and there with being completely, thoroughly let down by someone I really looked up to. At the tender age of fourteen I discovered that my favorite singer, Tyson Ritter, tended to act like a horny frat boy when on tour, and I was irrationally devastated. So, come Comic-Con, I was as nervous for Ian as I was for myself, because I was half-afraid that my favorites wouldn’t live up to my image of them (I was terrified of meeting Billy Boyd...turns out I didn’t need to be...but that’s a story for another post) and half-afraid that Roddy Piper would be a let-down for Ian. Because yes, I’m that kind of sensitive that means I can’t stand seeing other people in pain. Yeah, yeah, I know. Moving on.
Anyway, I needn’t have worried, because Piper was unbelievably kind to Ian. I’ll never forget that. First the guy called me beautiful (and if/when I post stills of myself on-set, you’ll see why that was such a shock) and implied that Ian had done well for himself by getting me as a girlfriend, then he threw in a comment about how “cool” my boyfriend seemed (reminder: we were at Comic-Con, a.k.a. Nerd Heaven; conventional definitions of “cool” seemed irrational here). I don’t remember much else of what was said, I just remember how unbelievably happy Ian was, how thrilled he was to meet his favorite, and how patient Piper was with the whole thing. Like how many people had that guy had to talk to that day? And yet he made damn sure to treat Ian like he was the only other person in the room. Didn’t rush us through the line or make the “yeah, whatever” face. Listened to Ian’s stammered thanks for supporting an anti-bullying group. Noticed our insecurities and complimented us in a way that would minimize them. Noticed me, despite my half-serious efforts to hide behind Ian (I was a little scared to meet a legit pro wrestler, okay?). Now, again I say, I didn’t know this guy--but based on one short meeting, and all the information that Ian piled on me in the weeks before Comic-Con, he seemed like a hell of a nice guy.
So how do I react, now that he’s gone? What the hell can I possibly say to my boyfriend that will ease his pain over the passing of someone he admired? What could those few friends of mine who didn’t think Robin Williams hung the moon have said to me when he died, other than “I’m sorry?” Because “I’m sorry” doesn’t seem like enough, but to say more feels contrived. And the fear of saying the wrong thing is very real, because one wrong word and you sound about as sensitive as Nurse Ratched. I remember feeling so frustrated when one of my friends jokingly said “You just had a crush on him, didn’t you?” when another comedian I liked passed a few years ago. It was infuriating. It completely dismissed my pain at losing someone whose art meant so much to me.
But what did I expect her to say? What can you say when someone’s--idol? I don’t like the word “idol,” I really don’t, it’s taken on such an awful meaning over the years (American Idol...ugh!), but it seems appropriate here--is taken away? It’s not like you knew the person, but on another level you did, and what the hell can someone say to you that will be comforting but not patronizing? How do you mourn someone who felt like a best friend to you, despite the fact that they never knew you existed?
All I know is that we did know them. I knew Robin Williams and Christopher Lee exactly the way they wanted me to know them: as Mrs. Doubtfire or Saruman; as a crazy OB-GYN or wacky Genie or beloved teacher, as a Bond villain or vampire or intergalactic dictator. I knew them as they wanted me to know them, and I will never stop loving the characters that they brought to life or being incredibly thankful to them for bringing those characters to life in the first place.
Ian, my love, I know that nothing I say now can make it hurt less that someone you admired is gone forever. But here’s what I believe: I believe that those few minutes you talked with him were invaluable. I believe that he knew, even just for those few minutes, how much he meant to you. And I think that wherever he is now, he knows that he is loved and missed and remembered. And don’t let anyone belittle your connection to him, or call your feelings for him “superficial” or laugh it off as hero-worship or say dumb things like “but you didn’t know him, how can you mourn him?” They’re wrong. You did know him, you knew him the way he wanted you to know him, and because of you, because of all the people who knew him and loved him and put his picture on their walls and read his book and asked him for an autograph at Comic-Con, he will never be forgotten.
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