Goodbye, Mr. Monk, I'll Miss You

The last episode of "Monk" was aired on Friday night on the USA television network. Everything was resolved at the end, and that's always a nice thing for a TV series to do. I dislike it tremendously when a show I've been watching continuously for a long time just gets canceled leaving the viewers hanging. (Nancy Canfield wrote in an article that we need to use the word "hate" sparingly, so I'm saving it up for a really big something.)

For those who've never watched the TV series "Monk", the show starred Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk, a former detective with the San Francisco Police Department whose wife was killed by a car bomb. He is also afflicted with a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder which eventually causes him to be dismissed from the police force. Finally, through therapy and with the help of a couple of able assistants, the latter being Natalie Teeger played by Traylor Howard, Monk is able to work as a consultant for the police, something he very successfully does because of his keen eye for detail.

I spend very little time watching TV at night, so I have few regularly scheduled programs on my list of favorites. I wouldn't watch "Monk" for a long time after it came on because to be honest, he drove me crazy with his constant touching things and compulsive cleanliness. I even wondered why anyone would want to watch it. But I had this one friend who just kept badgering me, urging me to watch it, so I finally broke down and gave it a couple of shots. I think she liked him so much because she's a little on the compulsive side, too. Finally, I was hooked.

As I watched this show week after week, I tried to figure out why I liked this little weird man who wore the same type of suit each week and would only buy the same type shirt inspected by a certain inspector at the plant. Luckily for that inspector, he noticed she was a little off on one week, causing him to look her up and helping her out of a crisis. He hated uneven numbers, and anything unlevel would cause him to go bonkers.

Then one day it hit me, here was this man lost in a world of disorganization and clutter driving him batty each day, but his mission to find his wife's killer kept him going. In other words, he had a goal. We all function better with a mission. We need a mission in our lives. The trick is to find it.

There are circumstances in our lives that cause upheaval. Sometimes, we would rather just crawl back into the bed and cover our heads, because it seems so hard to face it. Some people handle a crisis better than they do a normal day, but many of us feel overwhelmed and alone. It is our mission that keeps us going, whether it's our job, our family or our responsibility. But regardless of what it is that gets us up on our feet, we should be grateful for it.

I'll miss you, Adrian Monk. You made me laugh many times, but you also made me think, and for that I thank you. Friday nights will never be the same.

Source:

USA Network