This Robin Williams Tribute Will Move You

As the days go on, it’s still difficult to believe that one of Hollywood’s greatest actors and comedians, Robin Williams, died on Aug. 11. As an adult who, still to this day, watches Aladdin, cried during his reveal in Mrs. Doubtfire, blubbered like a fool at the end of Jack, and will always remember watching Dead Poets Society in my high school English class, watching the tributes to the late actor are nearly unbearable — and I'm sure I'm not alone, there. That being said, though, so many of the tribute videos I’ve seen have been so touching that it's hard not to watch them, for some comfort at least. In this most recent tribute video, the actor who has been the voice of Aladdin's Genie since 2008, Jim Meskimen, brings us his own poem, reading it as Williams and making it feel like he's still here.

In his poem, Meskimen notes the initial conflict he had with voicing Williams, as many people asked if he would do so. Meskimen says in his poem that though we never let things like Picasso’s death prevent us from using oil paints, or Mickey Mantle’s passing stop everyone from playing and enjoying baseball, “it does seem sacrilegious to do Robin Williams’ voice.”

From there, he continues by saying how unique Williams’ voice was and that though we may hear the actor’s voice in tributes like this in the future, it’ll never truly be the same.

“With the wealth of joy he left us, we should probably rejoice,” Meskimen says. “But it’s hard to grasp we lost the guy who used to have his voice.”

Check out the clip below.