Matthew Perry's death reminds us what we need to be doing right now

My arm was stretching into one of my jacket's sleeves when the first text about Matthew Perry’s death gently buzzed my phone. “Damn, did you see this?” my best friend had typed, introducing a link to one of the first stories notifying the world that a “Friend” had died. 

The 54-year-old actor was discovered in his Los Angeles home on Saturday, Oct. 28, apparently having died in his hot tub. He was pronounced dead on the scene by Los Angeles Fire Department officials. 

That headline caught me on my way out the door from a post-funeral gathering for a family elder – precious time spent with a brother, sister and cousins I don't visit enough. Given those circumstances, maybe you’ll understand my delayed ability to appreciate what Perry brought to the world beyond his work in “Friends,” the part to which most of our thoughts race first. That's natural, although what Perry represents on that show and everything he did afterward provides a more lasting lesson.

A year ago, in conjunction with the release of his bestselling memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry told People magazine,  “If I did die, it would shock people, but it wouldn’t surprise anybody. And that’s a very scary thing to be living with.”

This is one of many observations people have called “prescient” in the days since the news of his death first broke. 

In his 2022 book, Perry says he spent more than $7 million and had been to rehab at least 15 times. In various interviews, he stressed that he wanted his life story to serve as both an example of sobriety and a journey of never giving up.

We knew none of this when “Friends” introduced him as Chandler Bing. Instead the decade Perry spent on the show cemented how closely his character came to represent people we knew well or thought we knew. 

Some of this was a matter of emulation, since Chandler is the funniest of the New York sextet. Like the show's theme song promises, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Monica, Joey and Phoebe demonstrate all the ways they are there for each other in every episode. Chandler, though, stands out as the one who strolls into every situation with a flawlessly quotable sardonic reaction locked and loaded. (If you ever prefaced your reaction to some scenario with a smarmy, “Can [you/it/this] be any more . . .” then you have, at some point, fallen under Perry’s influence.)

Other critics have sorted through Perry’s talent and career highlights more extensively and meticulously than I could without simply relitigating what he brought to one of the most consistently popular TV shows ever. His career successes stretched beyond NBC's top Must-See TV comedy, including starring roles in theatrical rom-coms, acclaimed work in Aaron Sorkin’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and more praise for the criminally underappreciated 2012 comedy “Go On,” where he nails his performance as a grieving sportscaster who reluctantly joins group therapy.

But as Perry revealed more about his lifelong battle to maintain his sobriety over the years one might have reconsidered the ways his performance represents a mask many of us wear to fool the world into thinking we’re OK.

Although Perry was consistently candid about his addiction struggles, we never saw them in Chandler. Yet the intergenerational appeal of “Friends” translates to millions of people ruminating on Perry’s loss through our relationship with that show. And that lends to some contemplation about the ways his character reflects a truth about loved ones whose boisterous natures guard vulnerabilities and bruises they’d rather hide. 

The not-so-secret charm Chandler disguises in sarcasm is his kindness, generosity and the level of forbearance he affords his friends that he doesn’t always extend to himself. (There are also aspects of Chandler that, like the rest of the show, did not age well.) We all know people like that, and we probably don’t appreciate them enough. Perry says as much in that People profile, where he gives himself credit for “being sober today, for caring about others, for never giving up” and “helping people as much as I do.”

Loneliness, he adds, taught him “to treasure the people that really love you. And there are some.” 

Hearing about Perry’s death did not make the previous hours and days my family spent weathering our grief any heavier. Instead, it prompted me to recall the people I’ve told myself over the years that I’ll get around to checking in on eventually, some of whom are alive and others who aren’t.

I thought about the college friend who improvised dizzying jazz piano compositions, spun heady, wild prose and tumbled into addiction sometime after we graduated.  At some point in my 20s, he reached out after he’d gotten sober to let me know he’d moved to my city and gotten a job in a popular local bookstore, asking if I'd like to hang out. I told myself we’d get around to seeing each other eventually. A relapse and overdose ensured that would never happen. 

I thought about my childhood best friends whose lives diverged from mine because we all became busy – me with my career, they with their children and their related social obligations and networks. These aren’t absences, not deaths, but they nevertheless carry the risk of leaving questions unanswered, love unexpressed and truths unsaid. 

I thought about the ever-present possibility that someone, anyone I love, will simply go to sleep one day and not wake up. That can happen to any of us, regardless of health or age. It seems to happen more often in the era of COVID. Yet we — I — still put off reaching out to those who pass through our thoughts, assuming there's always more time to pick up the phone.

Perry was by all accounts in a good place, maintaining his efforts to help others to get sober and remain sober, and keeping in shape by playing pickleball. The officials who found his body said there was no evidence of drug use or foul play, although a toxicology report is pending.

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In an interview conducted last November in Toronto, Perry told Canadian musician and broadcaster Tom Power that he didn’t want “Friends” to be the first thing people remember him for when he died.

"I'd like to be remembered as somebody who lived well, loved well, was a seeker," he said. "And his paramount thing is that he wants to help people. That's what I want."

Don’t take that the wrong way; seeking comfort in a “Friends” rewatch is as acceptable now as it has been in past bouts of depression and mourning, valleys we've traveled regularly since the pandemic exploded in 2020 and that many are slogging through now.

This time, though, perhaps we can make a point to seek comfort in our people: the ones we check in with regularly; the ones that need more attention but don’t necessarily show it or say so; the ones we may assume are done with us but whose frayed bonds aren’t beyond restoration. That may be a better way to honor a lost "Friend" than anything we may see on TV.