Thank you, Robin

It seems slightly trite to write about Robin Williams.

But he's on my mind.

My brother called me last night and said, "Make me feel better about this."

For some reason, my brother felt that I was the only person who could relate to how he felt about Williams. You know what, I'm going to go ahead and refer to him as Robin from now on. I like to think he wouldn't mind.

My brother asked me if all young(ish) adults, of the twenty-something to thirty-something persuasion, felt this way about Robin Williams—that he was a fixture in their homes, and for some weird reason in our case, a father figure.

I get it now. Just now. In Mrs. Doubtfire, Robin played a divorcing father who would do anything to be with his kids. I read Scary Mommy's Facebook post about his courtroom monologue in which he pleads to not be separated from them.

And I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of us many children (at that time) who were experiencing their parents' separation or divorce never heard a monologue like that. How could we? The eloquence? The Hollywood timing? The delivery from an actor who no doubt knew pain and expressed it so well on screen?

For us kids of "broken" homes, I'll say thank you, Robin, for showing us (in whatever fictionalized way) that our fathers do care, for delivering those lines that we wished our fathers would have said, for showing us that we weren't being abandoned.

I don't think I'm the only one who can relate. And I don't think Robin would mind.