“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.
