Keeper of the Grail

The sounds of Time Square, a welcome reprieve from the ordinary, fail to assuage the sorrow that hangs heavy in my heart today.

Robin Williams as Parry in "The Fisher King"

For all the disdain I express for celebrity culture, I did have a particular affection for Robin Williams. I was five years old and watched "Mork & Mindy" religiously. I'd seen virtually all of his movies. I admired his charity work and had heard about his struggles with addiction.

When a larger-than-life presence is gone from this world, their absence is felt. And generally, any time I hear of a suicide, my heart anguishes.

And of course, there's the inexplicable sense of knowing the darkness that can lurk behind the most vibrant smile. The eyes that have seen a thousand faces, but find solace in none.

Robin Williams was not only renowned for his charity work with organizations like Comic Relief, and for testifying before the Senate panel on homelessness, but also portrayed a homeless man in the movie "The Fisher King." In one scene, he speaks of the legend that spurred his character's own quest:

It begins with the king as a boy, having to spend the night alone in the forest to prove his courage so he can become king. Now while he is spending the night alone he's visited by a sacred vision. Out of the fire appears the holy grail, symbol of God's divine grace. And a voice said to the boy, "You shall be keeper of the grail so that it may heal the hearts of men." But the boy was blinded by greater visions of a life filled with power and glory and beauty. And in this state of radical amazement he felt for a brief moment not like a boy, but invincible, like God, so he reached into the fire to take the grail, and the grail vanished, leaving him with his hand in the fire to be terribly wounded. Now as this boy grew older, his wound grew deeper. Until one day, life for him lost its reason. He had no faith in any man, not even himself. He couldn't love or feel loved. He was sick with experience. He began to die. One day a fool wandered into the castle and found the king alone. And being a fool, he was simple minded, he didn't see a king. He only saw a man alone and in pain. And he asked the king, "What ails you friend?" The king replied, "I'm thirsty. I need some water to cool my throat". So the fool took a cup from beside his bed, filled it with water and handed it to the king. As the king began to drink, he realized his wound was healed. He looked in his hands and there was the holy grail, that which he sought all of his life. And he turned to the fool and said with amazement, "How can you find that which my brightest and bravest could not?" And the fool replied, "I don't know. I only knew that you were thirsty."

Strangely enough, I was pondering this story just as I was approached by a man who asked me for something to eat.

There was a McDonald's a few feet away. I bought him a cheeseburger, because I only knew that he was hungry.

Even more strangely, in doing so, I was the one who felt like a wound was being healed.