Image credit: Thanks for Believing, by James Hance

From his Tumblr:

“Half of the proceeds will go to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which was very important to Robin, and the other half to the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention.

I’ll be framing the original painting and putting it on eBay tomorrow with all profits being split between both charities. I’ll also be making a high resolution image available as a free download to print for yourself, as you wish. A donation to either charity (or one of your choosing) would be amazing, but not compulsory.”

I’m an awkwardly sentimental person. My childhood, for good and bad, has shaped my personality (somewhere on a scale of cartoonish to narcissist). When someone extraordinary kills themselves it’s tragic. When someone ordinary does it, it’s tragic. When someone famous does it, it’s a chance for us to be eloquent and heartfelt, and profoundly sad. When a friend does it… it’s a chance for us to be eloquent and heartfelt, and profoundly sad.

I don’t know what really happened to Robin Williams. There will be days and weeks of speculation and, most upsetting, a ghoulish recounting of days. All I know is I felt my heart break tonight… for a stranger that I knew… for a person in pain that brought me joy at all stages of my life. We’ve lost a soul that touched many other souls. Our hearts are broken.

Suicide and depression are things I do not write about often (being the awkwardly sentimental person that I am doesn’t allow for too many tear soaked tappings on keyboards). I’ve dealt with both in my life and I accept that there is no light without the dark. There is no joy… without despair. There are different ways of seeing the same thing. There’s a whole range of mental illness that less than half of half our population could begin to understand. Everyone I’ve ever personally lost has been young. I know the stages of grief. There is shock, heartbreak, guilt, anger, acceptance, forgiveness. I know for every person that thinks that there is no light for them and that the dark will (eventually) swallow them whole… there are threads of light that break through even the dimmest of times.

Tether those threads to yourself, hold on – you can make it through all the fucking shit this life can bring – you are valued, you are loved…