#BourdainDay

When I was in 10^th grade I sat next to a girl in English class we will call S. I didn’t really know her and I don’t recall ever talking to her, but since our last names both started with the same letter, our desks were across the aisle from each other.

Then one day, she wasn’t there. To my recollection nothing was said about her absence. Until the word spread through the student body that she had committed suicide. Do you know what the school did about this? Nothing. No talking, no counselors, no nothing.

At 15 years old we were left to sort it out amongst ourselves. And we weren’t very good at it.

I understand that the school most likely thought they were doing the right thing by keeping quiet about it. The old “we don’t want to give anyone ideas” mentality persisted in the 80’s to an amazing degree. They thought if we didn’t talk about it, it would just go away. The problem is that we were talking about it. We just had no guidance or help.

I heard the manner in which she committed suicide. I heard that our tiny town was the “suicide capitol of the US” because we had more suicides per capita than anywhere else. I heard stories of other kids who had died the year or two before this, as evidence of numbers to back up this claim. And the places and ways they had died.

And to this day, I do not know if any of it was true. I suspect now, from an adult perspective, most of it wasn’t. But with no adult intervention, we were left to our devices and rumors can spread rapidly and with authority, no matter how wrong they are.

Today is the first of what some people are hoping will become an annual Bourdain Day. It was just over a year ago that famed chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain took his own life. Today would have been his 63^rd birthday. So friends of the chef are encouraging people to honor the late chef today by living with intention, trying something new and having a meal and lifting a glass in remembrance. All of which is great because someone should be remembered for the larger than life way they lived, not the way they died.

But let’s not let the opportunity to recognize the suffering that so many people, including Bourdain, live with day to day pass us by. Let’s not try to push his death into the shadows when it is a moment to reach out and try to help someone else into the light. We can honor his memory by acknowledging there are so many more among us who feel the same desperation he felt, and talking about it. Letting them know that they are seen and they are heard and we are here to help if we can, and to listen if we cannot.

The time of pretending these things don’t happen because “it’s better that way” is long gone. It leaves hurting people even more isolated than they already are.

So have a meal and lift a glass and take a moment to check in with someone going through hardships right now. Let them know you love them, are there for them, and listen to what they say. It won’t solve the problems of the world, but it is somewhere to start.