Zak Williams, the eldest son of Robin Williams, shared a moving message to his dad on Instagram on Monday, which would’ve been the elder Williams’ 74th birthday.
“My father lived to make people feel seen. He gave permission to feel deeply and to laugh through the pain. In his absence, that mission continues,” Zak wrote.
“So today, I hold close the idea that the best way to honor those we love is to live the values they stood for. To lead with service and compassion. To lift others when they’re down. And to find paths of light, even in the dark corners.”
Robin Williams died by suicide on Aug. 11, 2014, not long after he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A full death report revealed he also had Lewy body dementia, which has symptoms similar to Parkinson’s but has earlier signs of cognitive changes than the latter.
Zak is one of the actor’s three children, and the only one he had with his first wife, Valerie Velardi.
“Every year, this season arrives with gravity,” Zak Williams wrote Monday. “In just sixty days, we pass through Father’s Day, his birthday, and the anniversary of his death. It’s a tender and complicated stretch of time. One that asks a lot of the heart.”
Zak Williams honors his father each year with another Instagram post, some more focused on joy and others on kindness and love.
“For me, grief isn’t linear,” he wrote Monday. “It loops and echoes. It softens, then crescendos. But alongside it lives a legacy, the kind built not from fame or recognition, but from generosity and relentless kindness.”
