There is nothing to write in the face of the grief  Marie Osmond and her family must be feeling now. And, I have nothing but sorrow in my heart for her situation.

It has been almost a year, exactly, since I interviewed Marie Osmond backstage at Flamingo.

The two themes that hauntingly came through in our interview last year were her love of her children and her concerns about depression.

I know what it means to lose someone close to me through depression and suicide (if the published reports turn out to be accurate). And, so, I really have more to say on that topic. But I do want to tell you a little about my experience of Marie Osmond.

Despite all the entertainers I interview who speak to the importance of family above all, in over a decade covering Vegas, only Marie Osmond actually had her kids backstage with her at the Flamingo. Here is how I described backstage with Osmond in March 2009:

“In the first few minutes of her arrival in her dressing room,  Osmond takes care of a little business, does an interview with me, greets the president of the Flamingo and chats with a few of her eight children (who are constantly around). They are all clean cut, look like they work out (no teenage obesity epidemic in the Osmond brood) and each child offers a handshake and a broad smile.”

Looking back, Osmond, with sad significance spoke at length about a book she had written about her battle with depression: “Behind the Smile: My Journey Out of Postpartum Depression.”  And, she was proud of being one of the first celebrities to address that issue in a book, to make the subject visible. She told me that the book she was then writing was about finding humor in adversity, and that book would also discuss her battle with depression. The book was not really meant for us: “I wanted to write… for my children before I forgot:”  The book came out last year: “Might As Well Laugh About It Now.”

Osmond described her days in Vegas to me and they were centered on her children:  “Six of my kids still live at home, and my youngest is 6.” She told me being a mother was one of the reasons she loved the stability of a Vegas production show for her career just now. “I am a single mom. It is important I am with them in the morning to get them off to school… I will…be home when they get back. I can give them dinner and put them to bed and then head off to the Flamingo to do my show.”

Again, there is little to write about her situation that can be of comfort or value. I would like to use the occasion to talk a little about depression.

The darkness of depression is always visible even when interviewing a relentlessly upbeat person like Marie Osmond. “Darkness” was the word Osmond herself used to describe her battle with the illness to me: “For me, all I could do was get out of bed, wash my face and go back to bed….But I also believe if you can’t get out of bed, if your life is darker than dark, you need something to help you through.”  Notice the emphasis of that word, darkness, “darker than dark.” Dark for all its vagueness is the word that seems to best capture true depression.

William Styron’s book on depression was famously titled Darkness Visible. The book got the title from a line in Milton’s Paradise Lost where the poet is describing to readers for the first time Hell and Stryon recognized how this captured perfectly the nature of depression:

A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv’d onely to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all…

The echo of Dante on the topic about lacking all hope is also a key and fitting inclusion. The combination of darkness with no hope for any relief is unbearable. And, if  this sounds familiar as a mix that you are feeling please seek help from your friends and family or medical professionals.

Styron and Osmond overcame their depression; many others do not. Simply, recognizing that you need help can make all the difference. (Photo: Sarah Gerke)