Good-Bye Mork

Last night had to be one of the saddest and most shocking nights of my 39 years; the death of Robin Williams. As a child I grew up with him as Mork from Mork and Mindy. I can remember begging my grandparents for rainbow suspenders and I even remember having a Mork doll. I also remember my aunt Debbie taking me and my cousins to see Popeye, which would become one of my top 10 all time favorite movies. HBO's Comedy Relief and Live At The Met have always been two of my favorite on stage comedic shows (even though I really was too young to have been watching those). Aladdin was the first movie I took my baby brother to go see when he was about eight and my first date with my now husband, Michael, was Mrs .Doubtfire. It was also the first movie we owned on VHS as a married couple. Our daughter watched it constantly from the time she was about 2 on up. She would even dance with a pink toy broom along with his character on that famous scene from the film. He really was larger than life and someone who brought the loudest laughs and biggest heart. Will Hollywood ever be the same without him? Will there ever be another to come close? I doubt.

Things I Learned From Robin Williams:

1. Even an alien deserves to be accepted-so always accept some one's differences. Besides, who knows they may enlighten your fashion sense with some nifty suspenders.
2. Popeye taught me to never smoke a pipe (learned that one the hard way) and be what I "yam". 
3. The World According To Garp We all need a friend like Garp and Roberta Muldoon not to mention that despite what, where, and how we grow up-there's a big wide world of exploration and people we come into contact with that will affect us. (That last part came later when I was older and re-watched the movie. However I still loved Roberta Muldoon.)
4. Moscow On The Hudson really got me interested in Russia and Bloomingdale's was an actual place. (Don't hate-I was really young when most of these came out)
5. The Best Of Times made me root for "The little guy" because he was the one who would be willing to dress up in a bad tiger costume and save the day in more ways than one.
6. Club Paradise got me thinking, "Someday I might want to visit that place when I'm grown-up" 
7. Good Morning Vietnam really brought the whole Vietnam War to the forefront of my consciousness as I entered my Tweens. It also would later help me understand my father-in-law.
8. Dead Poet's Society made me want to look up all these great poets not to mention I learned some intelligent quotes to pass along to my Speech& Debate&Drama Club in high school. (score 1 for me)
9. I took psychology class because I loved Awakenings. I wanted to know everything there was to know about it.
10. Comic Relief and The Fisher King brought me home to the plight of the homeless in our country. 
11. Hook, Fern Gully, Aladdin, and Toys was my inner child's delight. I'm still a kid at heart today.
12. Being Human was an experience in patience yet after the movie was over, I found myself pondering the age of life-the discovery of it all. 
13. The Birdcage and To Woo Wong Foo were two movies that helped broaden my horizons as well as open my mind that we all have a place in the world no matter who we choose to love and reminded me how much I loved Bob Fosse. (ha).
14. Jakob The Liar which still brings tears to my eyes, had so many lessons in it but the most solid out of them were that even in great suffering, we still have to remember to be human. 
15. Bicentennial Man not only was a testament to a 5 year wedding anniversary to my husband and I, but that movie truly touched my heart. If a machine can want to be human, then we should all want to be more human and never stop trying. 
16. What Dreams May Come- I want to weep thinking about this movie. The love we have for those we are close to never really dies. That's about all I can say on that one without becoming a weeping mess.
17. One Hour Photo it's simple-STALKING IS BAD BAD BAD
18. Death To Smoochy well I am not sure if there was a lesson in that one but I laughed until I cried. Oh and artificial preservatives and merchandising can be bad, very bad. 
19. Patch Adams There are some things we are born to do and called to do in our lives and if we can't make a difference in just one person's life even if it is just a smile, then we are not really living; we are existing. 
20. Good Will Hunting-No one is perfect, and the intricacies of life are all about imperfections and making those imperfections work in our imperfect lives. 
21. The Angriest Man In Brooklyn-Well we all have bad days but some people are having excruciating bad days.

Now these are not the sum of all the Robin Williams movies I have seen over the years. I have seen just about all his movies but these were just a few of the ones that really stuck with me. The man multi talented as well as a genius as a comedian and character actor. Right now, it's still unsure whether or not it was suicide that took his life, but rather than focus on the tragedy of his death, I hope I can manage to remember the life he lived. I think his daughter, in a Tweet, summed it up the best: "You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them ... In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the starts were laughing, when you look at the sky at night ... You - only you - will have stars that can laugh." Antoine De Saint-Exupery.

Rest Well Robin, find peace because you deserve it.

"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."

~ Robin Williams