In remembering Robin Williams, I think it’s very important to focus on not how he died, but how he lived. When I first heard the news of Robin Williams passing, I immediately called my sister who answered the phone sobbing. You would have thought we had known or at least met Robin Williams. I think a lot of people had this experience and had a powerful connection to him. He was a role model and an inspiration to so many. Whether he came into your life as the alien Mork, Batty in “Ferngully,” the genie in “Aladdin,” a cross-dressing nanny in “Mrs. Doubtfire,” or as a gay father in “The Birdcage,” he would quickly become America’s favorite funny man. He was an avid supporter of the LGBT community and gave laughter to those who desperately needed it.

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In 2002, I saw Bicentennial Man on DVD with my little sister and cried so hard when they recognized robot Andrew Martins marriage to his human wife. My sister comforted me and was very confused by my emotional reaction and I explained, “It’s like gay marriage, don’t you see? They are recognizing their marriage based on love.”
Robin Williams was easy to relate to and seemed to stay true to himself even in playing wildly outrageous roles. You could not help but to fall in love with the man. One of his most spiritually intense movies and one of my all time favorite films starring Robin Williams was “What Dreams May Come.”

Williams participated in Reddit AMA in 2013 in which one questioner asked “I wept like an emotionally disturbed infant when I watched “What Dreams May Come.” What was the most valuable thing you learned about your acting from that movie/what criticism stuck with you the most afterwards?” Williams responded, “That every moment in life is precious?” and then continued, “that the gifts of your relationships with others, don’t miss it. That was one of the hardest movies I think I ever did in my whole career. Every day was literally hell, because of the nature of the subject matter, dealing with death and being in hell literally. When I watched the final movie, I felt it was extraordinarily beautiful but I felt disappointed by the ending. There was a different ending that they shot that I felt was much more true to the story. It was about reincarnation, basically, that they were going to meet again. The movie ended with two babies being born simultaneously, one in Bombay and one in the United States, and they held them up, and then the screen went to black. I don’t know if it’s anywhere.”

This film was definitely not one of Robin Williams biggest hits as it only made $55 million at the box office just a little less than “Jack” or “Bicentennial Man,” but as of late it has seemed to be growing in popularity and began trending on Twitter within hours of the news that the 63-year-old Williams had died. Today, “What Dreams May Come” is the 45th most-downloaded movie on iTunes, and the 40th top selling movie on Amazon beating “Hook” and “Aladdin”. Maybe this is because fans like myself envision Robin Williams laughing in his own personal heaven such as in the film, “What Dreams May Come.”