In Memoriam: Robin Williams, Leaving Another Great Legacy, LBD Found

Robin Williams was a man of many faces and voices; his departure though sad and untimely, gave a brighter light shining on many life challenges and now that light shines brighter on a previous dark problem: seeing and understanding Lewy Body Dementia in all its complexities.

I started an entry on my blog (but set it aside and felt now is the time to publish this entry) when I read the medical report on his brain biopsy and would like to recount how the Dr's added the LBD "was not noticed" within his lifetime and still cannot commit to specifically identifying the disease unless all currently known "signs" and "inclusions" are at a currently accepted high level at that autopsy.

Our multigenerational family lived together for almost four decades and did not see Lewy's beginning or see through possibly years of advancement and neither did so many others.

We were fortunate to be there at the end with Mom and to have finally found the right diagnosis, albeit not one the facility supported due to the terminologies currently used by medical diagnosis of "possible" and "probable" before death and autopsy.

In her memory, while she was alive and now that she is no longer daily with us, I live to write, to speak and to raise awareness of the challenges within facilities of recognizing Dementia, especially Lewy Body, in the general population and not just within the isolated units and not just Alzheimer's.

Let's work to see and work with the "masks" of Lewy Body, realizing our loved ones are not "gone" and certainly "not forgotten", they' are simply walking alongside us as they always will but following a different path.

Thank, you, Robin, and all who blaze a trail for us to follow. You may not be with us in body but you definitely are in spirit.
In Tribute:

Robin gave us many gifts of lasting value. This gift of discovery of another "face" and "personality" adds to his great ability to reveal life beneath the surface of what we see or chose to see.

Robin wore the mask of Lewy Body Dementia, it appears, and the whole world watched and did not see beneath the mask.

Robin Williams legacy is multi faceted. Perhaps his greatest will be his ability to poke and prod people into thinking a little more and laughing a lot more while recognizing eyes, ears and minds are most functional when they are open and receptive.