Barbarians at the Gate

“Robins Williams is dead. His death has been ruled a suicide.” The news broke last night and I found myself thinking about the tragic waste of a remarkable, creative life. Suicide. Why, we ask, would such a talented man take his own life? No one really knows you. The face we put forward masks what we feel. And, Mr. Williams wasn’t alone in his choice of endings.

Ernest Hemingway is my favorite author. His stories, written in simple, direct sentences are powerful and emotionally connect with me. He wrote of men in periods of war and trial; he wrote of obstacles and man’s quest to overcome. He wrote:

“A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.”

He lived as he wrote. As a young man, he went to Europe and served as a member of the Italian army in World War I, before America’s entry. He served with an ambulance team in the trenches; he served and was seriously wounded. He fell in love with a British nurse who then broke his heart. And wrote all about it in prose that clutches at my soul (A Farewell to Arms).

He witnessed firsthand the fascist atrocities in Spain’s Civil War. He climbed mountains; he fished for tuna in the Caribbean; he ran with the bulls in Pamplona. He drank to excess and smoked cigars and slept with a bevy of beautiful women. He lived life to the fullest. He was man, primal and cerebral and passionate and powerful. He lived a life most men could only dream about. And then, he put a shotgun to his mouth and ended it all …

One of my friends was out recently and he remarked how well I have help up over the past six years. That’s right, six years ago Monday I walked into work at 6:30 am a “success” – by everyone’s way of thinking. I had “everything;” or so people thought. And this friend, I am so blessed with real friends, people who have stayed when I’m not sure I would have, people who like writer Charles Bukowski who said “If you want to know who your real friends are, try getting a jail sentence.” – he tells me “there were times I worried you might try and end it all.” And I remembered how close I came; and I wondered why I didn’t end up like Mr. Hemingway and Mr. Williams.

Confession time. It was day six at the jail. I was a mess. Three days earlier, through Plexiglas I’d watched my younger son with tears streaming down his face tell me he loved me; I’d listed as his mother – my wife back then – told me she hated me, didn’t care if I died, and that I would never see her again. Add to that, the jail recorded the conversation and used her demands for “financial information” (she was on the way to the divorce attorney I had gotten her) as grounds to deny me bond – “flight risk.” And, my attorney, my high-priced white-collar crime specialist – told me there was nothing to really discuss with the prosecution. “You already confessed, Larry,” he told me.

I was ruined; I had lost everything; I was ready for it all to end. As I write this I try and remember why I decided to go on. I don’t think anyone wants to die. You just come to a point where the pain, the hopelessness overwhelms you. The barbarians are at the gate and you can’t keep them away any longer.

Depression. Every night I see some “talking head” psychologist – who never treated Robin Williams – talk about his mental condition. Where is the AMA? Shouldn’t they be regulating what theses assholes say? And it all comes down to depression, they say. I’m twenty-one and the outstanding senior of the year at my small, liberal arts college; I have my future by the balls. I can be, I can do, whatever with my life. And then there’s compromise and love … and I think of Damien Rice singing, “Love will make you cry.” You’re thirty and your dreams are deferred and no one, it feels that way, cares.

So you do, you be what people expect. And compromise leads to selling out your soul. James talks about looking at yourself in the mirror and “knowing” and then turning away and “forgetting” the kind of man you are. James was ahead of his time.

I understood God at that moment when the gates flung open and there was nothing to keep the barbarians at bay. It was the first time in years that I slept peacefully.

I knew I wanted to live; I knew I would somehow find my way back; I remembered and again knew the idealistic young man I longed to see in the mirror.

I thought a great deal about that day at the jail and my coming to terms with God as I watched the news about Mr. Williams. Suicide isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of resignation. You just get tired, tired of life. It’s funny, but I work out with a couple of younger guys who always pick on me and say “the old f---er just won’t quit.” I won’t; I can’t.

Six years ago my life changed. I thought it was over and instead a miracle happened and I began to live again. The barbarians were defeated; peace reigned. I thought about all of that this week and I said a prayer for the Robin Williams of the world and for the strength to hold back the barbarians.