A Great Loss

Normally, when celebrity dies I may be saddened but it doesn't impact me much...People die...When the great chef Charlie Trotter died, I was greatly saddened...When a celebrity commits suicide, well, for a long time, I shit on them...I understand people have demons, and deal with shit like depression...I do as well, but I have a hard time accepting people who have all the ability and wealth to get the help they need...But this blog isn't about that...It's about the loss of a culinary icon...

Up until 3 years ago, I spent my entire working life in the restaurant business...For a lot of that time, I didn't brag about what I did...I actually felt uncomfortable talking about it...Many people look down on the service industry...Yeah, they want people to wait on them and cook for them and serve them, but they don't really want to know you...Those people are fucking assholes!

I don't even know what my parents thought of my career path...Once they realized I was good at it, I think they were fine with it, but few parents out there are ever saying, 'God I hope my kid grows up to work 70 hour weeks for shit pay, high blood pressure and a drinking problem!'

Then one day I was in a Borders Book Store...Remember those places? I saw Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential"....I bought and had read it twice in a week...It's the book I wanted to write but didn't have nearly the experience to do...It was brutally honest and talked about the shit that's never talked about when it comes to the restaurant business...He was one us...Started at the bottom and worked his way up...

The Food Network had been around awhile but it was bullshit...Emeril was a hack that made people think all chefs had or needed a catch phrase...Fuck all That! (that was ours at the Fish House)...Rachel Ray never was and never will be a chef...She was a made for TV salesperson...But Bourdain opened people's eyes to the grind...

Suddenly I felt I could hold my high about what I did for a living...As his popularity grew, it opened many more doors for other real chefs, and opened many more eyes of the public about our industry...His show "No Reservations" took people all over as he taught us about food and cultures so many of us never experienced...and many would be too afraid to try...And when he went to big cities like Boston, he wasn't taking us to big name places and big name chefs...He showed us the underbelly of the culinary scene...Hard working, hard living, chefs taking shit to the next level and not getting the fanfare and not even seeking it...He delved into the underground music scenes, and took us to hidden gems...

Then with his CNN show "Parts Unknown" he took that same format to the next level...Exploring cultures, religions, history and yes, food, from all over the world...He shared the stories of legendary people, that we never knew of...Little tidbits of history they don't teach in school...And the food and drinks...So much we never knew about...so much we want to try now...And one of the greatest things he did.....He championed the little guy...The Hungarian film editor...The no name indie musician...The Detroit chef, in a dead part of town, starting a public garden and making amazing, yet affordable cuisine, hoping to be a small part of turning things around.

Anthony Bourdain was great chef, who started in the dish-pit...If he never wrote great books and did great TV shows, he still would have been a great chef that achieved more than so many of us dream of...But he took his culinary knowledge and his easy way with people, and was able to teach us so much more, about food and culture and humanity...

I don't know what drove him to take his own life and I am greatly saddened by it...I feel he had so much more to tell us and teach us...Maybe I'm just selfish because someone I looked up to is gone...

The Last Year Sucked

It's been a long time since I've done this...Honestly, I may have forgotten how to do it...In my blogging/writing prime, I was posting multiple blogs a day and I was definitely writing every day...Then my life changed drastically and in many ways...I lost time and the drive to write every day...I slipped down to one day a week until I just stopped...Why did I stop...Mainly, because I had written honestly, and was an open book, and I no longer wanted to let everything flow out of me...I didn't want to dig into certain feelings, nor did I want to share much of them...

I think now is time...I think I need to...Because I have become a depressed lump of shit...If you know me, or read the blogs back in the day, you know I've always had a angry streak...The anger is still there, it's not going anywhere...But the depression has built and built...

The Changes 

A few years ago, we moved from Cleveland to Erie, PA...We did it for good reasons...To help my in-laws...Both dealing with dementia...At the time, my Mother was battling cancer...But at that point things were looking positive...She was getting better...She had a brutal battle, but the docs were feeling great with her results...I hated breaking the news to my parents...I felt like I was betraying them...But they understood and supported us...They may have been pissed at us, but they never showed it...

Also, I left my life long career in the restaurant business...That was a plus in the sense that the life is tough for a family...But I loved that evil business...I still have dreams about those days, and one day will find my way into owning my own place...

Then Shit Got Worse

My Mother's cancer came back with a vengeance...It was brutal...Then I quit writing, the day I accepted the fact that my Mom was dying...I played the positive bullshit card as much as I could for the kids, but it was over a good time before she passed...I had fully accepted and mentally prepared myself that she was leaving...There is only one single guarantee about life...It will end...

In a couple days, it will be the one year anniversary of my Mother's death...She was in the hospital, they were managing her pain, and the last week, I was driving into Cleveland every evening and sending the night with her...My brothers and I took shifts along with my dad staying with her...That last morning, I knew she was going that day...I told her we'd be ok...I'll told her it was ok to go...She didn't need to fight for us anymore...When I was getting ready to go, my Dad said, "I'll give you a minute to say goodbye"...He hadn't done that before...He knew too...We all did...So I wasn't surprised when he called a few hours later and told me she was gone...

I got out of bed, and waited for my wife and kids to get home...They had gone to see my mother-in-law...I broke the news to them...The tears flowed, except from me...I'm the dad...At that time, I can't cry...I have to be their rock...I will never forget when my Grandfather (my dad's father) died...I didn't see my father cry...He was a rock for everyone...The day of the funeral, after it was all done, and he had handled what he had to...He went upstairs alone, and for the first time in my young life, I heard my father cry...But I didn't see it...It didn't see him cry until my Mom, his wife of 47 years died....

After I told the kids, and things settled down, I went to take a shower...But first I sat on the bathroom floor crying, and silently telling my Mom I was sorry..."I'm sorry I left you, I'm so sorry"...People tell me I can't beat myself up for moving...People will say they understand, and I didn't do anything wrong...They may be right, but I can't shake the feeling that I betrayed my mom, or that I let her down...

Firsts 

Since that day, every day has been the first something without Mom...And let me tell you, The first Christmas, and first birthday and first this and that (big days) suck an epic sack of balls...But very single day has sucked, because so many of those days are days that I would have called her, or she would have called us...So many things happen and I think, I gotta call Mom and tell her this...FUCK! Kick in the head! I can't call Mom ever again...There is so much we assumed she'd be around for and now life sucks so much more because she's not around for any of it.

I have dreams about my mom and wake up, and the first thought is 'SHIT!' It was a dream...Back to reality...Shitty steaming pile of reality....

I miss Mom every day, if only in the littlest way...A small flower popped up in our yard...My first thought was 'Mom'...I have barely listened to the Beatles in the last year...I hear the Beatles and all I can think of is my Mom...Every Beatles song makes me sad these days...She loved music...Lots of different music, but for me, the Beatles mean Mom...

Where Do I Go From Here

People say when someone you love dies, that it'll get easier...When my grandfathers died, it got easier, but I was young...When my cousin died, I got mad, and found myself questioning every bit of the Catholic religion I was raised in...I was still young and it got easier and kicked my brain into gear when questioning shit...But this is different...This is my Mom...My kids grandmother...A woman I could ask anything, tell anything, and would offer any and all help she could give, and support anything I did...Anything my brothers did...Anything my wife and kids did or needed...I don't know how this gets easier...I don't know how I stop being mad at myself...I don't know how I stop being sad...I'll never stop missing her.


The last year has sucked...There have been good things that have happened...There have been fun times...But it's all overshadowed by the fact that Mom is gone...That I couldn't share it with her...That the kids couldn't tell her about it...

How the fuck does it get better?