HEAVEN

Robin Williams - who anecdotally was on the autism spectrum  - was someone I've long seen as an Aspergian role model: someone I could point to for G as a person who was successful on his own terms, perhaps even because of his differences.

I was surprised by how sad and shocking I found his suicide.

I was one of many. A friend posted a recent-ish (2010) interview in the Guardian in which Williams' struggles to connect and succeed socially were striking. The interviewer stopped short of making fun of his accents, obsessions and tangents...but the undertone was perceptible.

Tonight at dinner, G began reading aloud in an exaggerated robot voice. I know people have told him he sounds like a robot. At that moment it hit me: perhaps Williams was using his multiplicity of voices as my son was using his robot voice -- essentially as an alternate or cover-up for his own quirky cadence.

I wish Robin Williams felt accepted and heard just as he was. I hope if he's in heaven it's a wildly, happily neurodiverse (and wildly, happily diverse diverse) place; I hope - if what happens is that we come back - that he comes back in a context that **unconditionally** accepts and celebrates him; I hope if this life was all there was for him that we learn from his pain.

I hope younger generations feel that  their own quirky, heavenly voices are valid, worthwhile, beautiful. Because they are.

Love,
Full Spectrum Mama