The Death of Robin Williams, 63, actor performer - Bipolar Talk at Jenkintown Rotary - Poem: In Memory of Robin Williams

The tragic death by suicide of Robin Williams touched millions of people and has brought bipolar disorder and suicide into focus once again.

I'll write an article about it for the Doylestown-based Intelligencer. Thanks, Alan Kerr!

The man was so goofy! And how we love to laugh!

 

How did YOU learn about it? I was sitting right here on my red couch watching LOST on Netflix, when Scott came over to say goodbye before he caught the 8:19 pm train to work.

I stopped the TV show so we could chat.

And quick-checked the NY Times.

Shit! I said. Robin Williams is dead.

We were shocked and aghast. It's common knowledge that he had bipolar disorder. As did his mentor, Jonathan Winters, who died in 2013 at age 87.



Jonathan Winters in one of his many incarnations.

This morning, I got ready for my talk at the Jenkintown Rotary. I do the hardest thing first.... setting out my clothes. No doubt Grace Presbyterian Church, next to the Jenkintown Library, would be freezing cold.

Before I went downstairs for breakfast, I went to my computer to find out where the church is located. Easy.

Then I thought, Hey! Why don't I write a poem about Robin Williams.

My first draft was quite good, I thought. Then I went downstairs for breakfast, leaving the poem to gestate.

Meditated for 20 minutes on the back porch. A few ideas came to me.

Then a phone call from The Rotary.


Hey, not that Rotary.

I was now invited for lunch! Good, I was stuffing myself with nuts cuz as a person with diabetes I've gotta stay all filled up.

The moment I got home from Rotary I hopped on my stationery bike b/c I'd eaten


The peach cobbler had been placed directly in front of me.

During the Rotary luncheon, I had selected a healthy tuna fish salad with blueberries and strawberries and cheese, but this was the tipping point.

I always enjoy Rotary meetings. Here are John and Holly. John is a retired police officer at the University of Pennsylvania. He rode a bike!

Holly, a retired schoolteacher, is in charge of the Jenkintown Little Theatre!

People always ask great questions... Why did my bipolar go away (no one knows)... why did I start the group (went to a terrible one at Penn, it was really a lithium checking group, under Dr Dyson and decided to start my own)...just as there seems to be an epidemic of autism, is the same true about bipolar disorder? (no, I said. But it takes an average of 8 years to get a proper diagnosis b/c psychiatrists - or family doctors - do not take a thorough history of the patient.)

I also mentioned the different sites where New Directions has met over the years, starting with Village Green Apartments, where the kids and I lived, then the old John Wanamaker in Jenkintown (now Steinmart, etc) where they gave us a meeting room and free coffee and cookies.

We also met across the street at the Jenkintown Library until we got too big.

You didn't know that, did you?

The President of the Rotary, George FitzPatrick, is an undertaker (someone used that word). Here's his funeral home.

In appreciation of my appearance, he gave me a pen. Believe me, a writer can always use a pen.

I now have 21,001 pens at home, not including the ones in my backpack and under the seat cushions. Not to mention my car and even my bed.

I began my talk by defining bipolar disorder b/c at the my previous talk at the Willow Grove Rotary I hadn't done that.

At least my 68-yo brain remembered dat!

Just pretend it's not blurry. Those are the New Directions brochures on the lunch table.

Now, speaking about bipolar goofballs - and I'm proud to be among them - this is the way I wear my eyeglasses when I'm driving. See below.

Went to my cataract doctor yesterday - I had my left one done a month ago - and Dr Sponberg told me my glasses were too strong for me and that's why I can't see when I drive. 

 I made a patch out of a sticky note from Holy Redeemer and secured it with a green twisty.

IN MEMORY OF ROBIN WILLIAMS 

1951-2014

You will always be one of us

from the lonesome chubby little boy

in Bloomfield Hills

to the toast of the world in

Tiburon, a sleepy little

fishing village whose name

in Spanish means

Shark!

The shark had come for you

hundreds of times, Robin Williams,

as it does to all of us with the

often-malevolent condition called

Bipolar Disorder

Its exuberant highs

keep us laughing

while the lows are so deep

we cannot arise from our beds

or kiss the ones we love.

We are hateful to ourselves

and disown the great gift of

life

of being here

Even one so bold, so brilliant,

so cockamamie as you

forgets it all in that one moment

of anguish

that binds you to a belt

and brings you peace

Let the shark roll back

to sea

Let the love of our families

keep us alive and laughing

as we gaze on the screen

at your antics in

Popeye or Mrs Doubtfire

or my favorite,

Good Morning Vietnam.

Hold on! Hold on!

Help is coming

The raft is on its way

It won’t be long now

before we love what we

see in the mirror

Our own sweet selves.