Remembering Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Everyone’s Favorite Brother

“I’ve been dreading the thought of having to write these words all week because it makes the unfathomable real.”

My favorite thing to do as a kid was to sit in front of my mom’s box TV and soak up whatever was playing on the screen like a sponge. Most of the time, it was cartoons, music video countdown shows and the occasional reruns of classic shows she grew up watching. One of them was “The Cosby Show.”

Before a slew of allegations against Bill Cosby tarnished the warm memories associated with his groundbreaking sitcom, I got to know the Huxtable family quite well. I would sometimes imagine them as my own, since I wasn’t blessed to have siblings or live in a two-parent household throughout my adolescent life. Sondra, Denise, Vanessa and Rudy were the sisters who reminded me of my cousins, and Theo was the brother I never had.

To me, he was cool, goofy, charming, endearing and, oddly enough, really familiar. Much of that I credit to the natural charisma of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who portrayed Theo not as a character (who was inspired by Cosby’s only son, the late Ennis Cosby), but as the curious teenager he was, also finding his way in the world. He gave a piece of himself to Theo that has lived in my heart ever since, which is why it felt as if the actor and that character would somehow both live forever. I really wish that were true.

The worst goodbyes are the ones you’re never prepared for.

That’s why I, like many on Monday, struggled to wrap my mind around news that Warner died unexpectedly on Sunday in an accidental drowning on a family vacation in Costa Rica, an official autopsy concluded. He was 54 years old. He leaves behind his wife and an 8-year-old daughter.