I encourage anyone who reads this post to share your feelings about Robin Williams, depression and loss in the comments section. Let’s have a conversation.

It’s been over a week since the loss of Robin Williams. As one day moves forward into the next, turning that sad day to dust in our rear view mirror, the sadness overwhelms me now more than ever. My Netflix account has been busy, streaming his films: The Fisher King, Hook, The Birdcage. These are films I had seen years ago, but it was like viewing them for the first time. Each moment of the master gave me pause – each conversation and reaction. I drink in his presence, and cling to a beauty I’ve never noticed so acutely before. That’s all we have left of him. His films. The twinkle in his eye. The shazbots and the nanu’s, the “Oh Captain, my captains”… His talent was like a taste of God touching down on Earth. A little heaven. At least he gave us light for a little while. He’s not of this world anymore.

Trying to make sense of the whys of his situation is a tough one. We’re strangers to the man. He gave so much to us, that his own mind and sanity is private – something only he and his family will and should know. Yet, how many of us have fallen into the hole? How many of us have wanted to walk off the precipice of this world, and take a dive to nowhere. I’m trying to make sense of it. He didn’t die from an illness like cancer or was killed in a car or airplane crash. He died from an illness that lead him to take his own life. It was preventable. Only one phone call, or just taking stock and stepping away from that room to slip under the covers with his wife on an ordinary night, sleeping an ordinary sleep, waking up on an ordinary day . But no.

My heart sinks just trying to imagine those last moments. I flush from my mind all the graphic details the Marin County police department released. Yet, I still cannot imagine, someone so intent on dieing, that when one method didn’t work, he went for something else to take him out.

What could have been in his mind to let him make the final decision? Did he feel he was a failure? Did he feel alone in a world of so many people who loved him? Did he justify his decision to end it all by convincing himself that his wife and kids would be better off without him?

Shut the door on this sadness. Remember his laughter. And if you are depressed and are thinking of suicide, please don’t…don’t…don’t do it. Know that someone loves you. Know that you will get out of this. Know that if you decide to leap from that precipice, you will create a hole in the lives of many. And you don’t have to be as famous as Robin to do that.

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255