They’re saying that Robin Williams was known for being funny – a comic – and I suppose that’s true. But I will remember him most for his role in the film What Dreams May Come, which was powerful, intense, beautiful, and not even remotely amusing. In fact, the irony of it makes me sad tonight.

It is the story of a man whose wife commits suicide, and when he reaches his Heaven he cannot find her there. She is in Hell because she took her life. Unable to accept this, he sets out to find her among the lost and bring her back. I won’t spoil the outcome for you.

I pray that someday humans will evolve to become beings with the power – born of willingness and compassion – to redeem the suffering among us, while life still holds that hope.

 
“…They think of suicide as a quick route to oblivion, an escape. Far from it. It merely alters a person from one form to another. Nothing can destroy the spirit. Suicide only precipitates a darker continuation of the same conditions from which escape was sought. A condition under circumstances so much more painful.”
– Robin Williams, as Richard Matheson in What Dreams May Come