The first celebrity death which I remember being very saddened by was John Candy.  He died in 1994, two years after I graduated high school, and I just remember feeling it was a big loss for Hollywood as he was such a great actor, and so funny.  Even in the years following Candy’s death, I still felt a disconnect with most actors and singers who died – it was just the name of a person who I vaguely remembered, if at all.

Then in June, 2009, Michael Jackson died, and suddenly, celebrity deaths were not just actors and musicians I’d never seen or heard of before.  Now those deaths meant something – it meant the loss of an actor, singer, performer, etc. that I not only had heard of, but admired, loved, respected, or watched / listened to as a kid.  Someone I felt like I knew.

I can recall to this day, over 5 years later, the where’s, the when’s, and the how’s of Michael’s death.  I was still working at the IT Helpdesk for AHS Information Services when I got a breaking news alert email stating there were reports that Michael Jackson had just gone into cardiac arrest.  I don’t know what it was, but just from that one little sentence in an email, I knew he wouldn’t make it.  I immediately started instant messaging with my co-workers that Michael Jackson had gone into cardiac arrest, and I was pretty sure he would not make it.  It was more than 15 minutes later before the news broke on CNN, and not too long after that they reported he had died.  I was so profoundly saddened by his death.  I loved Michael Jackson’s music throughout my childhood and teenage years.  He went on to release music I wasn’t crazy about, but I never doubted that he was a musical genius, and I would still listen to his older music on occasion.  I knew he was a very troubled soul, had a lot of mental issues, and was probably miserable much of his life, but I never doubted for a minute that he was a good person.  I never bought into all the rumors and allegations of child molestation, etc that plagued him in the later years.  He was more like a child himself than anything.  He just didn’t get that he was sometimes crossing boundaries he should not have crossed as an adult.  I think in his own mind, he was still trying to be a kid – something he never got to experience when he was a child due to his meteoric rise to fame at such a young age.

For several weeks after his death, I would listen to his greatest hits in the car, and I could often feel tears coming to my eyes because I felt the world had been robbed of his genius far too soon.  Of course, I was also pregnant and very hormonal at the time so I am sure that played a part in my emotional state, but I just couldn’t believe he was gone.  It took me about a month to move past his death…

And now, flash forward to this last Monday, August 11th, 2014.  Randy and I had just finished eating dinner, we happened to have the news on, and our jaws literally fall open as the news anchor reports that actor / comedian Robin Williams has been found dead in his northern California home.

No, this just cannot be….there has to be some kind of mistake…a sick joke that will be cleared up in a matter of minutes!  I run to the computer to pull up CNN and see what they say because…well, they know everything…and, it wasn’t there!  Whew!   Okay, yes, it must be some kind of outrageous, false report. Then, minutes later, I check again, and my heart sinks…..it’s true.  Robin Williams has been found dead in his home from an apparent suicide.

For the last week, Randy and I have been reeling from the news of his death.  It has affected us more than any other celebrity death that I can think of – even Michael Jackson.  Not only were we huge fans of his movies and his comedy, but we very much admired the amazingly kind and generous person he was. Celebrity after celebrity have made statements about how shocked and saddened they were to hear of his untimely death, but it seems the manner and circumstances surrounding his death are what has been the hardest to accept.  Suicide.  Robin Williams, so very brilliant and talented in making millions laugh, could not make the most important person in his life happy – himself.

As has been revealed in the days since his passing, he suffered for many, many years with severe depression, had multiple bouts with substance abuse, and had just recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. What a heavy burden he was carrying around with him on a daily basis – one that most people, even some of his closer friends, did not realize was becoming such an unbearable pain that he felt he had no other option than to take his own life.

We have been immersing ourselves in everything Robin Williams that has come on TV over the last week, and it has been so hard to see him on stage performing, or hamming it up on Mork & Mindy, or to not break down in tears while listening to his character come to life in Aladdin.  We are immensely saddened and heartbroken – it feels like we’ve lost a good friend.