Andrew Koening, the child star of Growing Pains and son of Star Trek father Walter Koenig committed suicide today in Vancouver. He was found in a park. His father told the papers how many, many people have written in talking about their own depression. Like an epidemic, it seems to infect perhaps billions on this beautiful planet of ours. This nice-looking, 41 year old man who friends says was a deeply emotional and caring person, painfully decided he could take no more pain. His parents were helpless to stop it, and apparently Andrew went on and off of his medication and was struggling to keep his head above water in the manic world of show business.
So who is to blame for this – A heartless world, so caught up in its own madness that one person’s needs are irrelevant? His parents or friends? Should they have done more, said more loving words? Could any person have stopped him, or the million others who will kill themselves this year alone? How can someone so full of life one minute, simply be gone the next? It makes my heart break in two and I cry, even though I have never met him. But I also smile and today will be a little brighter because I am still alive. I still have blood running through me, love in my heart to give away, and the mind to write these words.
I will be with you one day, Brother. “But not yet. Not yet…”
