My favorite movie of all time is Good Will Hunting. Forgive my ignorance, movie aficionados, but like most sentimental favorites it was the right screenplay, starring the right people, hitting a particular stride at a particular moment in the marathon of my life. Most notable among them was Robin Williams, who previously primarily occupied only the funny bone in my mind’s eye of his collective body of work. Hook, Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Comic Relief specials on HBO and what little memory I have of Mork and Mindy reruns informed my early impression of a performer who would later gain much more of my adoration and respect. I know his early work from Dead Poet Society now, but I did not know it then. I am all the more appreciative today that Apple so elegantly reminded me of it earlier this year.

How apropos that we have such a memory, never more than a quick search away, of such a man reciting the eloquent words of Whitman. Robin Williams, a man who breathed invigorating life into moments subdued and moments electric. He was a man who could take over a scene with “phenomenal cosmic power” or deliver it with the delicacy, and constraint of an “itty bitty living space”. Just give the man the moment, and he contributed his verse. Dear Robin, thank you for being here.