A Few Thoughts on Robin Williams and the Shadow Behind the Smile...

Robin Williams: It has often struck me that the funniest people, the ones who are the sunniest on the outside and make us laugh the loudest are often the saddest souls on the inside. Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" pretty much says it all. He seemed to have it all, didn't he? Academy Awards, successful film and television career, one of the most revered comedians and actors of our time. And yet, it was not enough to overcome that dark shadowy beast of depression.

As I continue to wage my own personal war with that particular monster, the tone of the comments and media stories still strikes me. We are sad. we are reverent, we are careful not to say any words about the tragic death of this amazing man that might offend or cause hurt, but still we dance around the truth we do not want to admit: Depression is a terminal illness for which there is no cure. It can be medicated, it can be managed, but it will never go away. It always lurks, hiding in the dark shadows of your mind, waiting for that time when you are tired, stressed, weak, overworked, to strike again. Often, it hits when we least expect it, when things seem to be going well. When we would seem to have not much reason to be depressed at all, but after we have finally scaled that high mountain or overcome that insurmountable obstacle. That is when it is at its most deadly, when we we seem to finally have our happy ending.

I say again, Depression is a terminal illness. Left untreated, unmanaged, unmonitored, it will kill you quickly and often in a rather spectacular and shocking manner. I am sure there are many out there who will rush to disagree with me, pointing out the wonderful anti-depressants, the treatments, the benefits of diet, excercise, socialization, etc. etc. I am here to tell you I do all of those things, and yes, they do help, but they only manage, they do not cure. The ugly fact is, like alcoholism or addiction, there is no cure, and once the shadowy beast has taken a bite out of you, has smelled and tasted your blood, so to speak, its hunger will pursue you for the rest of your life. You may win many battles with Depression, but you will never win the war. In the end, the best that you can hope for is to die of something else before it finally does take you.

I am heartened at least, to see the careful compassion for Robin Williams and his family in the wake of his death. (I will not say untimely death, because frankly, the man was 63. He had a long and full life of love and success. He achieved things many of us will only dream of). We all saw the brilliant actor, the comedian, the entertainer, but how many ever saw the weary, grizzled, battle scarred warrior within? He finally came to the end of his strength. He has laid down his sword and his shield. His fight is over. And horrible as this may sound, perhaps we should also be glad for him. Because frankly, sad as it is for his loved ones, much as we will miss him, can we not find at least some small comfort in knowing that for him there are no more battles, no more pain, and now he can finally rest? But the fact, is, we don't want to be glad because it feels wrong. And in the "wrongness" of it, I still see the strong stigma attached to mental illness.

When my own father died after a two year long battle with cancer, frankly, I did not grieve. I felt relief. I was glad that his pain was over. I was glad that my pain of watching him die slowly by inches was over as well. I have found many others who openly admit to me that a loved one's passing to cancer or alzheimer's was more a relief than a sorrow. All the grieving had been done on the front end. Perhaps it is because the pain is physical, because the steady erosion of the body or the conscious mind is so painfully obvious that we see death for the welcome rest and blessing that it becomes. Depression and mental illness, however, are not so obvious. Emotional pain is just as unbearable as physical agony, but it is much more easy to mask, and for our own survival and functionality, we hide it easily behind facades of happiness, smiles and laughter. We hide it to protect ourselves from the stigma of being "weak" or "crazy," never realizing that half the people around us are just as weak and crazy as we are. Because no one else can see it, our inevitable collapse comes as a shock to them, and they cannot fathom what could possibly lead us to such an end. I mean, weren't we taking our pills? Weren't we getting help? Didn't we see how much we had to live for?

Yes, we were, we did. But few can see it from the other side. I've done all of that, I've lived my life, and yes, it was good, but it's not enough any more. The ugly truth is that the monster will always be bigger than we are. It does not need to rest. And no matter what we do, it will always be there, lurking in the shadows and patiently waiting.

Yes, we can manage depression. We can use all the tools of science and medicine to hold it at bay, and long periods may even go by where we forget that we even have it, but we will never defeat it entirely. It will come back, and often at the time we least expect it. And even with successful management of depression, it still eats away at your soul and self, bit by tiny bit. Because management of the disease requires strict and unfailing discipline. -Something that is difficult to maintain in bad times and even harder to maintain in good ones. You can manage it carefully, you function, you go to work, clean your house, mow your lawn, take care of those million little details of daily life just fine and on the surface everything looks great, but underneath the surface, you feel the constant grind of the gears of discipline, slowly wearing you down until you can't help but ask yourself, "What's the point?"

Even well managed and well medicated, Depression slowly and steadily robs you of your joy for life. Perhaps you can laugh again, yes. Perhaps there are a few things here and there you can still accomplish and look back upon and think, that was good, or that was fun, but day by day, those feelings become more and more muted, those times of enjoyment become fewer and farther between, and your passion for life, for living, slowly ebbs away with time. On the surface of things, to outsiders, it all still looks so good. You are sucessful, you are working, you have accomplished those great dreams you always wanted. But the monster hampers your ability to keep dreaming, and once you have finally accomplished all of your dreams and you cannot think of new ones to pursue, you find yourself standing there, looking around and thinking "Now what?"

Sadly, with your ability to dream newer, bigger dreams dialed way down, there does not seem to be much answer for that. It takes longer, and you have to work much harder to come up with new ones. And sometimes, we just don't have the strength to do that. The fact of the matter is that Depression will kill you. It will either do it quickly, possibly in spectacular fashion by your own hand, or it will do it slowly, eroding away your passions, desires, purpose and drive bit by bit over the years until you one day look up and realize that, great as everything seems to be going, you are still somehow much less than you were before. I am glad to see the understanding and compassion pouring out all over the internet for Robin Williams and his family. I also hope we will show just as much compassion for the neighbor across the street that we occasionally see but don't really know, that kid in our class, that customer in our store, or that complete and total stranger who unfortunately made the 5 o'clock news.

Depression is a terminal illness. The best that you can hope for is to survive it long enough to die of something else.

Elegy for A Bridge

The Big Creek Bridge (still standing, thank goodness!)

There is something about bridges. I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it's their monumental size, combined with graceful engineering and design that makes them both an imposing edifice and a thing of architectural beauty. Perhaps it's their imposing and sometimes improbable span across high gulches or great bodies of water. Occasionally, it's just the fact that they've always been there for as long as anyone can remember, until it seems a permanent part of the landscape, something that has always been there and always will be.

Until, of course, they are not.

The truly grand examples, the covered bridges of Winterset, or New England, the stone arch bridges, the soaring, monumental feats of engineering such as the Golden Gate, are perhaps some of the best-loved monuments to transportation, connectivity, and the passage of time. Thought time marches steadily on, we stubbornly cling to them. It doesn't matter that they can only handle one or two lanes of traffic at a time. We don't care that they are getting creaky and in need of extra (and in some cases extraordinary) maintenance in order to safely bear the wear and tear of modern transportation. And heaven knows no one likes to think about the money it will cost to replace it with a new one. In spite of practicality, safety, and expense, our sentiment for those graceful aging spans sometimes seems to outweigh even our common sense. It's still good, we tell ourselves, and many communities have gone to extraordinary measures to save them. We move them to county parks to become part of light duty trail systems. We close them permanently, maintain them as a tourist attraction and build a whole new road into town. The ones we keep around, we keep because they are inherently beautiful, and a part of the landscape we can not bear to lose. We make memories upon them, and thus they become bridges not only to the other side of the bank, but to the other side of our lives as well. They connect us to those who came before, and to those who will come after.

Or so we like to imagine.

I lost my favorite bridge this week. The Ely Street Bridge, a graceful iron lady that spanned Big Creek on the south east side of Bertram withstood the ravages of the great flood of 2008, only to be taken out by a quick flash flood and a particularly large tree this time around. Built in 1891, she was one of three bridges that once served the small community, together with the Blaine's Crossing Bridge (still standing, but decommissioned in the 1960's shortly after Highway 13 was put through, and the Big Creek Bridge (also washed out this week, but mercifully, still standing), they connected Bertram to the world and the surrounding farmers to Bertram.

From the time I was a little child, the Ely Street bridge was an old familiar route. Crossing it once meant coming home, situated as it was, only a minute or two away from my grandparent's farm. It was the bridge we rode our horses across and under, considering it both an essential part of their training as tractable mounts while giving us both a bit of a thrill and a challenge as we briefly considered the possibility of our snorting, shying steeds plunging over the side into the treacherously shallow waters of the creek below. Later, it was my scenic route home, the occasional cruise down memory lane, connecting the route between the farm where I was born, the more suburban house a few miles away where I finished growing up, and the farm I recently purchased and intend to spend out my days. The Ely Street Bridge spanned not only both sides of Big Creek, giving me a handy back road connection between my old home and my new one, but a connection of memory to these three major phases of my life.

But time passes, seasons change, graceful iron ladies fall, and one day you come to the familiar crossing only to discover that this time, you really can't go home again.

The Ely Street Bridge collapse

I knew it the moment I drove down the hill and failed to see her bright red girders waiting for me, but rather a gaping expanse where red girders should have been. Surprisingly, I was not quite as sad or heartbroken as I had expected to be. At least, I thought, she went out like a bridge, on her own terms, waging her own battle with Mother Nature, and finally losing. As an added mercy, she went with no lives lost save her own. She was not retired, carted away to some county park as an amusement or bypassed and left to stand and rot. There can be no argument, no political debate, her fate is no longer something for an affectionate and conflicted populace to decide. She is simply gone. She cannot come back. We will miss her, but she managed to leave us with no regrets.

I was not alone that day in mourning her loss. A family was already there before me, looking at the wreckage, and when I got out of the car, the first words that came out of my mouth were: "Oh no, my bridge is gone."

The young girl standing at the edge of the precipice nodded slowly. "My bridge," she said. "I walk here every day."

It occurred to me that for an aging monumental edifice that had not moved an inch since the day of it's construction some 123 years ago, the Ely Street Bridge really got around. As more and more people showed up to survey the damage, it became readily apparent that she had been carrying on an exclusive, intimate relationship with nearly everyone in town.
It was the same sad statement echoed over and over again by everyone who showed up:

"My bridge is gone."

Never our bridge.

My bridge.