Strangest thing, death.

Robin Williams died. Suicide.

Disturbed, I looked up an article. He’d been suffering a deep depression lately, it said.

I just started thinking about him. How my family loved Hook, took the VHS on vacation with us, wore through it and bought another one. Dad always giggled at the part where Peter and Rufio are having the name-call-off.

And Mrs. Doubtfire. It’s ridiculous really, but fabulous when you’re 9.

And then Good Will Hunting, where Robin taught us how charming it can be when a loved one farts in her sleep.

Then I’d gone back. Dead Poets Society was a big deal for me, actually. I remember watching it alone one night. I remember the way Robin’s face twisted when he said some of his lines. DPS helped teach me to love poetry. The kids standing on their chairs brought goosebumps, the ending a devastation I couldn’t get over for days. “O Captain! My Captain!”

Good Morning, Vietnam was a look at a bit of history that had been fuzzy for me in school. Libby made us watch Aladdin almost every day of summer break one year.

Deep depression. Such loneliness he ended it all. I just cried and cried.

He got a lot of flack lately. What must that type of pressure — criticism — be like?

The last thing I saw him in was an episode of Louie a couple weeks ago. He and Louie are the only two attendees at the funeral of a fellow comedian. While chatting later, they both admit that the deceased was a huge asshole, and it’s no wonder they’d been the only ones at the funeral. But neither could stand the thought of an empty funeral, his casket being lowered into a hole with no one but the gravediggers around.

To celebrate this man’s life, they decide to go to a strip club the deceased had loved and constantly invited each of them to, but neither had ever gone. While there, they casually inform one of the dancers that this guy had died. Everyone in the place starts bawling, they kill the music and have a moment of silence for him.

At the end of Robin’s bit in the episode, he and Louie say their goodbyes and ask one another for a favor: attend my funeral if I go first?

I know it’s sappy and weird and whatever to mourn a celebrity. But I think everyone deserves to be celebrated. Sometimes you don’t realize the impact someone’s had until you look back. Robin’s best roles always were as a teacher.