What makes them do it?
What makes them end it all when they appear to have it all?
So much money. So much fame. So many fans.
Yet in the end, Robin Williams was so all alone. By himself, when he just killed himself. That's what hit me -- how this man who could fill theaters left this world in a room where it was just him.
Despite all those friends, and all those fans, and all that family. Robin all alone.
It's so sad. But so familiar.
That part. The dying all alone part.
Robin Williams of apparent asphyxia in his Northern California home.
Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman succumbing to a poisonous mix of drugs in his New York apartment.
Singer Amy Winehouse from accidental alcohol poisoning in her London townhouse.
"Glee" actor Cory Monteith from an alcohol and heroin overdose in a Vancouver hotel room.
Actor Heath Ledger from prescription drug intoxication at his Soho Manhattan apartment.
What happens? What makes them do it? What makes them risk it? What brings them to the edge, then over the edge?
People we look up to and like to think they have so much to look forward to.
Until they don't, until they're gone.
Until we discover their lives weren't what we thought and the money, power and fame wasn't the great elixir we imagined.
Few were funnier about their demons than Robin Williams about his. Who else would make light of a cocaine addiction than this comic -- even including it in his standup?
"What a wonderful drug," he'd say. "Anything that makes you paranoid and impotent, give me more of that."
You laugh until you cry as you mourn another celebrity gone too soon.
They say money can't buy happiness, but I think it was Williams himself who joked it could sure put a nice down payment on it.
Until it couldn't. Until the man who made millions laugh, died alone, clearly very sad.
The latest celebrity to leave this world in what we're stunned to find was a world of hurt.
I don't know why we're always surprised when these tragedies happen. But we always are.
Because we can't seem to fathom we all battle the same demons, no matter our dollars.
That we all leave this world as we came into this world with just ourselves. Just us.
Maybe the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Sometimes it just looks that way.
Such is life. And this earthly stage we all share.
No matter how briefly the time we share it.
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