It is Friday. It has been a long week.

About a week ago I was having lunch with a friend. I was saying that I think I needed to take a ‘hiatus’ from Facebook. I know that there was no way I was removing my account or anything like that, but a break, just a week (or a few days who am I kidding) away from it all.

That was the plan this week….until Monday night.

I worked all day, and then went straight to a condo board meeting. When I came upstairs, the first thing I did was of course look at facebook. What I was saw pretty much changed my trajectory for the rest of the week.

This has to be a hoax. This can’t be real. What is going on? Robin Williams is dead? These were the updates flying all over my news feed. I had to find out what the heck was all of this about, and spent the rest of the night engrossed in this crazy little experiment called social media.

I felt like I was punched in the stomach. Obviously he was not a ‘friend’ of mine, or a relative, or even an acquaintance, but as I am finding from so many posts, blogs, stories this week, he was a part of my life just like he was in so many others. His characters, his voice, his jokes seemed to be like a nicely woven rug through my life.

I started to think about all the ways in which the genius of Robin Williams touched my life.

Let’s start with the obvious….Mork from Ork. Happy days was (and will always be) one of my all time favourite shows. Looking at the clips now, I was too young to really understand what about to happen. Henry Winkler told tv reporters this week that the cast knew they were witnessing something never seen before, comic genius.

There are iconic roles, like Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, Mrs. Doubtfire, Alladin, The Fisher King, Good Morning Vietnam, I could go on and on and on. Movies that are part of my life, decade by decade. Comedy or tragedy. Patch Adams, Awakenings, Moscow on the Hudson, The Fisher King….really, where does it end?

But it did end. At only 63 years young, it all came to an end this week. A grown up kick in the gut moment. Based on what I have been reading all week long, that would sum up how many are feeling this week.

There is so much more to be said on the topics of depressions, battling demons, getting through the day, but I don’t really want to do that today. Today I want to remember the genius that made me laugh, cry, think and was a part of my life.

May you rest in peace Genie, you are free.

O Captain, my Captain.