It was a chance meeting in the mountains, a moment of silent assurance that changed Tara Brousseau Snider.

At the top of that mountain was Robin Williams.

Brousseau Snider, the executive director of the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba, was still in mourning three weeks after her husband took his own life in 2007 when she ventured to Sunshine Village in Banff, Alta., to be with her son, who was working there.

Brousseau Snider was coming off the gondola sobbing, with the pain of losing her husband very much still fresh in her heart. When she looked up, there by sheer coincidence was Williams, entertaining a group of people before he looked over and noticed Brousseau Snider.

The sight of her tears — this complete stranger — led him to stop what he was doing and walk over.

"I was very, very much in a shock and grief period still," she said. "He looked over to me and he had the kindest eyes you could ever imagine.

He just stood there with me for the longest time. I could not have laughed, and he knew that."

Brousseau Snider said Williams stood with her for five minutes or so, not saying much of anything, just providing a quiet comfort to a woman he sensed desperately needed it.

"My reaction, of course, was that I wasn't up for laughing. I didn't want to talk to anyone really at that point," she said. "He didn't ask that of me. It was as if he knew what I needed. You could look into his eyes and you could just get the greatest sense of comfort."

Brousseau Snider was shaken when she heard the news of Williams' suicide Monday afternoon.

"I'm very, very sad for his family," she said. "He was a great gift to the world. He had a lot of comic ability and ... the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba, we've always been closely guided to the comic world to show people there is laughter in the world and you can laugh."

Brousseau Snider now calls her chance meeting and Williams' kindness a turning point in her battle with the grief.

"I realized if someone with the stature of Robin Williams, if he could just come and he could see pain and he could stand with it, I actually believed life would get better from there on in," she said. "He was a turning point for me on that day."

Williams' on-stage personality was always bigger than the room, the man whose boisterous being could carry a performance. With Brousseau Snider in need, however, Williams simply stood and let her be, knowing words weren't required there.

On that winter day, Williams did say one thing as part of that pivotal interaction that helped Brousseau Snider begin to heal.

"It's lovely to be out here, isn't it?"

david.larkins@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @LarkinsWSun