When Mourning Philip Seymour Hoffman, Don’t Forget The Real Victims Are His Three Kids

I think by now we are all aware of the terrible news of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s passing in what was believed to be a drug overdose. I am a big Philip Seymour Hoffman fan myself, and the whole scenario just made me sad after hearing that he’d been sober for 23 years but had recently relapsed.

Even though no one knows exactly what went on, in my mind, I made up a little story about how he was probably just trying to get a fix or two before he kicked the habit again. He didn’t mean to. He’s a good guy, and everybody loves him. It is so very sad that one of his “mistakes” actually ended his life.

So everyone in America is sad and talking about how great his career was, but people are missing the most important point of all. Are you even aware that Philip Seymour Hoffman had three children? YOUNG children? With his partner of 15 years, he had three little kids: a 10-year-old son, a seven-year-old daughter, and a five-year-old daughter.

Another article reported that he was last seen alive at eight PM on Saturday night, and he was supposed to pick up his kids on Sunday. He didn’t show up, and that’s when he was found dead with a needle in his arm.

At this point, I’m changing the little story about him that I had in my head. I still feel such sadness and compassion for him, but it’s really not about how a great actor had his career cut short any longer. His kids were waiting for him to show up, and he was dead. Later on, they will probably find out that it was from a drug overdose, and that’s even more heartbreaking.

I can’t put myself in his children’s shoes exactly, but I do have a similar memory about my dad that has fucked me up to this day. One weekend early after my parents’ divorce, when I was about 12, my dad got mad at my mom and never came to pick us up. I didn’t understand what was going on at the time, and I’ll literally waited by the phone and looked out the window for his car the entire weekend. He never showed. That memory for me is still very, very painful, but it ended semi-positively because my dad is still alive.

That’s the scenario that I have playing out in my head for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s kids. They were waiting for him to come pick them up, and he never came.

(Image: celebritybabyscoop.com)