The Long Goodbye

I came home from work on August 11th to find my husband looking shocked.  He was slowly taking out dishes from the dishwasher and said, “You know Robin Williams,” he started.  “Yes,” I said smiling wondering what the punchline was going to be.  I didn’t expect the next sentence.  “He died and the early reports are that he killed himself.”  “Wait - how? Why?” I asked as millions of people around the world did when they heard the news.   Those of us who do comedy improv, looked on him as our Pavarotti - the man with perfect pitch and timing.  

I was in shock and I hoped that this was some sad prank like the fake internet hoaxes for Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby.  I figured if I waited a couple of hours, the internet would figure out it was all a big cluster fuck and the man who made me laugh thousands of times would be fine.  But once I went to the computer, truth was all too real.   Legitimate news sources were reporting on his suicide.  Suicide - I knew he had a problem with depression but Jesus, suicide?  I was numb.   I mean I’m a very emotional person, but I could barely cry.   I posted my shock on Facebook as many people did and even posted his best moments on Whose Line Is It Anyway? a show that does improv games.   I cried a little more but not the soul wrenching sobs that should have come.   This guy was a comedy legend - what happened?  

As the days went by, and the details emerged it got more heartbreaking - he had financial set backs, his sitcom The Crazy Ones was cancelled - he was deeply depressed.   The depression was the one that was getting me.  I’ve suffered from depression off and on since high school and when people would talk about how selfish he was for killing himself it was obvious they just don’t understand depression.   Some people self medicate with drugs and alcohol.  For me, it was obsessing on my weight, purging, crying and never feeling good enough no matter how pretty and thin people thought I was.  I tried to explain on Facebook that depression is like a cancer of the mind.  You would not say, “But she has such beautiful breasts, they had everything how could they get cancer?!”  It’s the same thing with depression, you can have wealth, success and be considered the funniest person on the planet but once that tumor takes hold of your psyche, it can over power you if it goes undiagnosed and untreated no matter how big a movie star you are.  

I remember in college having crying jags so bad, I was not sure if I would ever stop crying.  It was pretty bad after Danielle was born which really sucked because I had this beautiful baby but just felt like I was letting everyone down.  That’s what depression does, it pulls you into a vortex of self doubt, zaps your energy and you close off from people.  Worse is when people take the “just get over it” attitude because once you go down that slippery slope, it’s hard to pull yourself back up.  You would not tell a person with cancer to just snap out of it, don’t ask a depressed person to do the same thing.  But still the commentators on FOX, Rush Limbaugh (who also self medicated and has experienced depression) commented on how cowardly it all was.  Fucking A - these people had no idea and just because you are laughing on the outside doesn’t mean you’re not hurting on the inside.  

But you learn to cover up and for some people, humor is a great defense mechanism.  It keeps people at arms length if you can keep them laughing they won’t get too close - just keep them distracted by good humor and they will think everything is fine.  When the life of the party actually stops trying to crack you up and is serious, it’s a good sign - it means that they trust you enough to let the walls down and they want you to come in.   So I understood in my own way what is was like to be a funny person and still be someone who could walk off stage after making a packed house laugh and feel unworthy. 

A few days after his death, I was feeling a little better but then word came out that he was also suffering from Parkinson’s which had been recently diagnosed.   That hit me hard because my mother has Parkinson’s and I know first hand how that disease can take a healthy person and make them lose the ability to walk and do things for themselves.   It clicked as to why he might have done this - maybe he wanted to go out while he could still do things for himself.  My mother ate right and exercised and she got it - what was to keep me from getting it too - even if they have not be able to establish a link through heredity?  Shit, is that my future?  Would I want to be a burden to my family?  I sat on the computer that Saturday, tears rolling from my eyes because while I hate what he did maybe that was a saner reason than just depression.   

I needed to shake this funk and the kids really wanted to see a Robin Williams movie.  That night, we watched Mrs. Doubtfire and decided to recreate the cake in the face 

“Heellooo!” scene.  Each one of us - the kids and Max and I got to have a ton of whipped cream on our faces with all the giddy silliness of toddlers.   You can see the video see by clicking here.   After it was edited and posted - I have to say I felt much better because I was remembering him for the comic genius he was not the person who had killed himself. 

I would have left it at that until I saw the Twitter posts from Rob Schneider claiming that the Parkinson’s medicine is what killed Robin Williams. That really fucking pissed me off because again my mother suffers from Parkinson’s and if he was in the early stages then he was probably not taking a ton of medication but then I don’t know that and frankly either does Rob Schneider.   To use the reasoning that he had lived with depression for 20 years without offing himself and then blame the dangers of Parkinson’s medication is stupid and fucking irresponsible.  My conjecture (because I don’t know for sure and won’t make an declarative statement) is that his wife was probably keeping a close look at his medications and would alert a doctor to to any severe side effects or complications beyond the depression he had already been experiencing.  If you use that argument then why isn’t Michael J. Fox a victim of suicide as well?  He was diagnosed in 1991 so by using that logic, he would have been gone by his own hand long ago and yet here he is raising money and doing the best he can with what he has.   

I think in the end, we’ll never really know what happened and that’s the sad part.  It leaves us mourning harder then if it had been a random act of fate like a car accident.  I don’t know if Robin will be our generation’s Marilyn Monroe - it’s still too fresh to figure out and there will always be someone who will try to give you the definitive answer as to why - but unfortunately there is none.   In a more spiritual sense, I’d like to think that maybe the manner of his death encouraged people to call suicide hotlines which kept them from taking the same sad path.   There will be no way to know the number of people his final act might have saved.  

I was running with my earphones and Never Had a Friend Like Me came on from my Pandora feed.  I went from a run to a walk and started to cry.   My prayer is that I’ll be able to hear his voice and not feel loss but a genuine joy that this comic genius brought to the world.  Now when I look at a plate of whipped cream - I giggle.  Laughing with him and not crying because of him is what he would have wanted.    

A Mother's Pride

My church is very liberal - it's the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Gwinnett County (UUCG).   I call it one of the little blue spots in the big red state of Georgia.   Our church believes in social justice, gay rights, and the right of everyone to explore their own belief system.  This is a huge contrast to my upbringing in the Catholic church were you didn't have a choice about what you believed you just had to believe in the teachings of the church.  There was not a lot of questioning about faith growing up although I will say that when Max and I got married, we did find St. Louis, a Catholic Church that was pretty open to a variety of ideas (ironically, the adjective catholic means universal).   So when it came time to get back into the habit of going to church for the sake of the religious upbringing of my kids, I tried going to Catholic churches here in Georgia.  I found them lacking compared to my beloved St. Louis.   I didn't see many alter girls at the churches we went to and while there were women helping to do readings during the service, I knew my little Amber would never see a woman priest leading the service and that made me sad.   I wanted to find a place where my kids could be who they were and the Catholic churches around where I lived at the time were just not giving us that.   I needed something more accessible. 

When Daniel was two years old, I found UUCG.  I remember taking Amber the first time I went.  Not knowing the dress code, I wore a skirt and six year old Amber wore a dress with a matching hat.   We were immediately welcomed to this small church that had maybe 100 families total.   With it being so small, you get to know folks and there are many people there that I'm very fond of and enjoy seeing.  It's a nice place to hang as long as you don't seek any deep spiritual conversations about God, Jesus, miracles, guardian angels or other Christian beliefs that might brand you a simpleton among the more enlightened unbelievers.  I've reconciled myself to knowing that I'm more there for the social and political aspects than finding my spiritual path there.  It's nice to not have to hide the fact that you're a liberal since Gwinnett County is very conservative.  My kids are very comfortable going there.   I will always have a place in my heart for the Catholic Church and its rituals even if it's not openly pro-gay rights.   I do enjoy going to mass from time to time just to keep me centered about my relationship with God, the power of prayer, the saints and the continuity of rituals that happen at the same time every year.   As far as prayer and my connection with God go, I can do that anywhere without going to a cathedral.  

With UUCG, it's sort of like Cheers - "you want to go where people know people are all the same, you want to go where everyone knows you’re name."  So you wouldn't pray at Cheers but you'd sure sit down at the bar and let Norm and Cliff know how you're week was.  They would be interested and you would feel like you belonged - that's UUCG but without Sam or Woody serving beers. 

At ages 11 and 16, my kids are huge advocates for gay rights because we raised them to believe that everyone deserves to be loved and respected.   Working in the theater, I have gay friends and have heard their stories growing up and how they were picked on and bullied.   When I worked at Actor's Express Theater Company, they produced The Laramie Project about the death of Matthew Shepherd, young gay man who was killed by a pair of vicious homophobes.  The story is about how his death affected the town of Laramie, Wyoming.  It echoed the struggles of the civic rights movement in the 1960's and how people who could have done something - could have stopped the prejudice sat by and did nothing.  Seeing that play and how people reacted to it - both the members of the gay and straight audiences was really touching - there was a feeling of loss and resolve to never let it happen again.   As many times as I saw that play as the Marketing Director there, it always got to me.  You could not help but feel sad when you thought about how tragically this young man had died at the hands of fear and ignorance.  

Amber and Daniel see the discrimination that comes with being gay in their schools and they want to work to end that prejudice.   Our hearts always break when we hear about a young person who has committed suicide because there were being bullied at school because they were gay. Daniel is also very aware of the Westboro Baptist Church and their demonstrations at the funerals of our servicemen to protest this country's perceived tolerance of homosexuals.   It outrages him every time he sees them in the news.  Picking on the grieving families of soldiers who died protecting our freedom is just wrong, and it's sure as hell not what Jesus would want.   I'm not really sure what they stand for but it's not on the side of God.  I tell Daniel and Amber that they are not really a church but just a bunch of stupid people who are out for attention.  They are not doing God's work because he loves all his children.  Daniel understands this but still gets very angry when Westboro appears in the news.   He's afraid of them as a group - because picking on people you don't agree with in the name of religion can eventually turn violent.

So this fall when we heard that the UUCG would be part of a contingent of Unitarian Churches that would march in the annual Gay Pride parade, the kids really wanted to be part of it.  The parade was on a Sunday in mid-October and would start at 1:00 p.m.  I had marched in the Pride Parade when Daniel was about a year old when I worked for Actor's Express which was named the "Gay Theater" back then and they were doing The Mystery of Irma Vep.  I even dressed up Daniel's stroller with show posters and streamers and he was a big hit back in 2002.  Now ten years later, I would have both my kids in the parade marching and it would be a family outing (no pun intended).   Max had to work that day but was there in spirit.  

We started our trek on Marta which is the public transit monorail that takes you into Atlanta.   It had been a while since Daniel and Amber had been on it.  It was an interesting combination of riders:  there were the church goers, those going to the Atlanta Falcon game and those either watching or marching in the Pride parade.   Each group seemed somewhat oblivious to the other but the Falcons fans were the loudest.  The kids were fascinated at iconic images of downtown Atlanta would flash by and I kept an eagle eye out for our stop.   Not being sure, I asked a group that seemed to be going to the parade where the right stop was - the bright wigs, sequins, make-up and spandex gave them away.   A young woman in the group said that she knew where to get off and to follow her.   So we got off at the Civic Center and were greeted by a slew of bright costumes, men in dresses, women in over the top costumes and just a sense of excitement and pure joy.   Literally, it was like a very gay Disney Parade but with lots of different types of queens instead of princesses.   It also felt like the happiest place on earth.   For the rest of the year, many of these people probably had to feel like they needed to not be who they were in order to navigate their real life in Georgia even if they lived in more tolerant cities like Atlanta or Decatur.  But today, they could be who there were and no one was going to judge them.   No one was going to tell them they were bad or evil.   Today, we were all there to celebrate the fact that they should have "pride" in who they are and no one was going to take that away from them. 

As we made our way to the Unitarian float, you could feel the excitement in the air.   Our float was lined up with some other more family friendly organizations which included the Humane Society and a very progressive Baptist Church that was there to show their support for the cause.  I was so glad to see that because I didn't want Daniel to think that all Baptist churches were like Westboro and that there were churches of all denominations that would accept gays.    We got in line right behind a group of men's volleyball players who ended up spiking and hitting volleyballs to each other through the entire parade route.   Before the parade started, Daniel asked me if he thought we would see any demonstrators like Westboro and frankly I doubted it because there seemed to be a ton of security and thousands of people down the parade route.   Daniel stayed on the float which was a flat bed trailer with bails of straw in it and a few signs being pulled by a van that looked like something out of a Scooby Doo movie.   We were walking down the parade route holding signs like "Unitarian Universalists Support You", "My Church Supports Gay Marriage," and "UU Churches Welcome You."   It was cool that when folks saw us and the float they started to cheer.   Amber, who usually gets really tired really fast kept on going, waving to the crowd with a big smile on her face.

Then about a third of the way into the parade, we saw them - the demonstrators - a few of which were from Westboro.   So here they were, these hate-mongers in our midst telling us that we were going to go to hell for what we believed.   Rather than getting rattled or upset by these misguided zealots, I saw Daniel on the float mouth the words, "Hell No!" as he grabbed a sign that said "My Church supports Gay marriage" and ran bravely towards them.   Amber saw the demonstrators and ran over as well.   I kept an eye on them - and their sense of righteousness to make sure nothing would get out of hand.  They were not scared and they were not going to back down.   Of course, there was safety in numbers.  There were people from our church around them along with about 10,000 parade goers on the side of gay rights, but in that moment it didn't matter - it was them against a group of bigoted hateful people and my kids were not going to be silenced.   When they saw Daniel's sign, they shouted that we needed to go to another church - Daniel walked proudly by unfazed.  I learned later that Amber flipped them off - perhaps not the most eloquent way of dealing with idiots but certainly in a language they understood.   One of the ladies in our group when over to the Westboros and said repeatedly "But we love you - please come and worship with us."   I liked her approach and vow to use it next year. 

My kids were now fully in front of the float, carrying their signs with me and being cheered by the crowd.   As we got to the home stretch, a man came towards me from the crowd and shook my hand.  He told me that his friend had been a member of a Unitarian Church in the area.  His friend was openly gay and felt very accepted and at home in the UU church.   But times got tough for his friend, he went through a really bad time and committed suicide.  The UU congregation opened the church to his grieving friends and they all felt very comforted and welcome in a way that most churches would not have under the same circumstances.   They were not judged, they were simply allowed to be.   The service was beautiful and he felt the need to tell me how much the church had meant to his friends and him.   I told him how sorry I was for his loss and hugged him.  

I had felt good all day about what we were doing, but that man's testimony helped me see what a resource my church was for those that felt so marginalized.   His friends were able to grieve openly and not be told by a minister that their friend was going to hell for taking his life or being gay or both.  There was a real spiritual connection that we shared in that moment.   I was glad that he told me his story because it affirmed for me that sometimes miracles can happen even in an Uniterian Church where many of the congregants will swear on a stack of bibles that they just don't believe.  For me, I knew that God does work in mysterious ways even for those that might not think they need the help.

We finished marching in the parade and I was glad that my kids had gotten a chance to face the Westboro folks who scared them and stood up to them (although as a mom I had mixed feelings about my daughter flipping someone off - even if they were fear-mongering miscreants).   I was proud of them and best of all, they were proud of what they accomplished.  They are part of a movement that will stand for justice for gays to be treated fairly and to have the freedom to marry who they want.  They beamed with excitement that night as they told their father what they had experienced.  It was a wonderful day full of love, lessons, the middle finger and at the end of it all, my children made their parents very proud - what more could a mother ask for?