Remembering Gene Wilder
I will never forget what I was doing 366 days ago, I had bought a house about 4-weeks prior that needed a lot of love. After renovating for two weeks, enough had been done that I could finally move in. I was certain that buying a house as a single person was the biggest mistake of my life. I was endlessly overwhelmed and felt as though I had fallen into an abyss I would never be able to climb out of. I finally decided to do what always seemed to help when my life felt bleak. At about 10:00, on the evening of August, 28th, 2016, I did what I often did when feeling especially melancholic when I put in one of my favorite Gene Wilder films.
Gene Wilder films feel like home to me. His was the first filmography of any actor I had ever finished since first seriously watching films in college. After hearing an interview in which he was so open about his years-long therapy sessions, his search for love, and evolution as an artist, I was hooked. I love artists that enjoy talking about their art; it gives me a burst of energy and allows me to see their work as an extension of themselves, bringing to life my favorite part of film as an artistic medium. That particular night I selected Haunted Honeymoon, the 1986 film Gene Wilder wrote and directed, in addition to starring in. Almost instantly the tension that had taken over for nearly a month began to release its grip on my body as I began to laugh. The more I watched, the better I felt, and nearly an hour into the film, I finally went to sleep, the calmest I had been since the home-buying process had begun.
The next day I went to work like any other day, but was a bit more relieved than I had been in weeks. As the normal hustle and bustle of the work day proceeded I was pulled away from my work by a close friend with a pained look in their eye asking me to sit down. As he said the words "Gene Wilder passed away", I was in just as much denial as people always are in the movies. I didn't want to believe it, I couldn't believe it; the person I emulated that was so giving of himself in both his art and his time couldn't have left the world—we still needed him. Another co-worker walked into my office asking if I was alright. It was no secret that I was a fan of Gene Wilder's. Just in my cubicle, I had a framed portrait of he and Zero Mostel from The Producers, a picture of he and Mel Brooks behind the scenes of Young Frankenstein and my own rendition of one of his watercolors, as Gene loved to paint with his wife. I kept a figure of him on my desk in the likeness of Willy Wonka which suddenly became too difficult to look at. The rest of the day was a blur, I know I didn't get any work done and just wanted to be leave. Muscle memory took me home and got me through doing the dishes, but when I saw the case for Haunted Honeymoon sitting on my entertainment center, I broke down. I spent an hour in a ball on the floor sobbing and feeling like a fool for mourning, so physically over a person I never met. I took myself to bed and tried to write about Gene Wilder, I wanted to make myself feel better for being so impacted by his death. I couldn't do it, I couldn't do anything; the tears began to flow until they soaked through my pillow, I then flipped it over and cried some more. I cried myself to sleep and arose the next morning feeling just as miserable as when I had gone to sleep. All I wanted to do was stay home and grieve. I had a work trip that I couldn't get out of so I got dressed and got through the day with scores of people that didn't know me asking what was wrong. They meant well, but I couldn't tell them what really had me in the state I was in was the death of a celebrity. Finally, on the second day after Gene Wilder's death, I took a day off. I thought if I could "get it all out" I would be fine, as it was, I had never met the man. I won't sugar coat things, I cried most of that day. I didn't eat, I had trouble sleeping, most importantly, I didn't watch any movies which was something for someone that averaged at least one movie a day. The magic was gone, the person that made acting come alive as an art form for me was gone and I didn't feel like I could handle watching movies anymore, and I certainly didn't think I'd ever watch one of his movies again.
That was a year ago and in some ways, it feels like it was yesterday. I remember the smallest of details from the day that stole my hero, from the socks I was wearing, to the bracelet I had on. But in other ways, that grief feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like forever since I had to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with feeling distraught over a death that didn't occur to someone I knew personally. This process didn't come easily. I had to convince myself that what I was feeling was empathy, and proximity doesn't determine when one feels empathetic. I had to learn that despite my never meeting Gene Wilder, he had shared himself, not just in the films everyone remembers, but also in his memoir and the four novels he wrote, in the watercolors he loved painting with his wife Karen who Wilder called the "love of his life" and the person who he said made him "happier than he had ever been". It's their love that gave me hope when I was unlucky in my own romantic life, it was his openness about his time in analysis that didn't make me feel so emotionally flawed, and it was his films that made me understand beauty and happiness and how those feelings transcend the miles that separate us between the individuals we share the world with. It was a lesson I wish I could have learned without losing the earthly presence of the man I most emulated, but in a way, it's a testament to what I thought of Gene that he was still teaching me lessons about life through his death.
I've watched many movies in the span of a year, not as many of Gene's as I usually do, but I watch them too, from time to time. I've made memories, I've spent time with friends, I've laughed. I've been as resilient as any person who deals with death and I learned a valuable life lesson. The most important thing that's happened is that I became comfortable in my own emotions. I've refused to let people dictate how I'm supposed to feel. In many ways, that's given me the most autonomous year I've ever had. I still keep my hero close to my heart. I started a Twitter page in October of last year wherein I post about him almost daily, determined to keep his memory alive. Many of the tenants I hold closest to my heart are ones I learned through Gene Wilder. I loosely say that he taught me "how to be", and I hope I'm doing a good enough job at "being" that he wouldn't feel that I'm getting his message all wrong. I believe every person in this world could learn something from the gentle soul that was Gene Wilder, and I hope, no matter how many years pass we will always remember him and keep #GeneWilderForever in our hearts.
