After interviewing Robin Williams in 2010, British journalist Decca Aitkenhead wrote, "He seems gentle and kind - even tender - but the overwhelming impression is one of sadness."

While he kept the rest of us laughing, Williams wrestled with the demons of loneliness, substance abuse, and sadness.  Robin Williams was a wrestler - literally. He was on the wrestling team in high school, and played a wrestler in his first major film success (The World According to Garp, 1982). Watching the wrestling scenes, there was no question that Williams knew what he was doing. For his role as a teacher in Dead Poets' Society (1989), he consciously modeled his character on John Campbell, his high-school history teacher and wrestling coach.

The Book of Genesis tells the story of Jacob, wrestling with an angel.  Although Jacob prevailed, he walked ever after with a limp. Robin Williams was also scarred by his psychic wrestling. He limped, but he also laughed, and he never lost that kindness, that tenderness.

In a blog post after Williams died, Sue Campbell, his wrestling coach's daughter, writes of Williams' "decency and kindness" to her father at a later time in life, when her father was wrestling with his own demons.

Robin Williams was quick to mock the pretensions of anyone. But he was never bitter, never mean. Aware of his own woundedness, he was gentle with the wounds of others. 

                                                 --by Bill