Last Friday, I sat on a cushioned bench in Dallas Love Field, waiting to board my 6 AM flight to Baltimore. On a television mounted in the terminal to my left, the face of Anthony Bourdain caught my eye. I missed the lower third before it disappeared as a montage of random photos of Bourdain played through. There were no subtitles, but the nature of the slide show made my heart sink, and a moment later the text returned to confirm what I couldn’t believe.

That day, one week ago, the world lost a friend. As the day went on and more information came to light, I learned that Anthony, like my father, took his own life.

I have been inspired to the point of obsession for as long as I can remember. As a young child my big three obsessions were dinosaurs, space travel, and pod racing (I have high hopes for the latter becoming real one day, Elon). Then in 7th grade, I discovered the Food Network and with it Iron Chef and Emeril Live. A more realistic dream formed and obsession flourished. Finally I could take that inspiration, walk one room over to the kitchen, and (unlike the years of study and training it would take to be eligible for the astronaut program) I could find out almost instantly how bad I was. I learned, looking back, that it was easier to keep a dream alive if you didn’t have immediate negative feedback, which is a very kind way to describe how badly I fucked up simple things like scrambled eggs and peanut butter cookies. And so my aspirations to sling hash against Morimoto were put in the pantry.

I made it to adulthood, spent several years in the Marines, and as life went on the muses to my obsessions came and went, leaving behind storage tubs of “stuff I might need” should they ever return.

Then in the most unlikely place came fuel I’d use for more than just one fire. I saw a familiar yet unknown face make a cameo in The Big Short. In one particularly clever segment, Anthony explains collateralized debt obligation in relation to the housing crisis. I didn’t know Bourdain’s work. I had maybe caught three minutes of ANTHONY BOURDAIN: NO RESERVATIONS. But that scene stuck with me. The Big Short lead to a short term obsession with the stock market that subsided quicker than most, but that salt-and-pepper, fish-chucking chef…he stuck.

Almost a year later, I purchased Kitchen Confidential, and it became hard to imagine a time before Bourdain. His writing was riddled with charm but sported a wicked set of teeth. Despite his warnings and horror stories, he made you want to sell off your life and open a restaurant or drop your 9–5 and sweat out your days in a kitchen.

The moment I swiped the last page on my Kindle, I picked up the sequel, Medium Raw. Again, more of the same brilliant storytelling and cutting observations; although with the addition of a defining bit of reflection, including the infamous fish and brunch commentary.

There is significance in how short my time with Anthony’s work has been and how strongly I feel his absence. In his writing, I didn’t just find a renewed love for cooking, but a new level of self-reflection and awareness, which in turn helped me understand weaknesses and strengths both old and new. His work has helped establish a level of restlessness within me that allows me to remain committed to current projects while also seeking new experiences. A desire to always seek something new without veering from my goals. In no small way, Anthony is responsible for one of my greatest emotional and ideological growth spurts.

As I’ve made my way through his work, I’ve become more heavily invested in my own. I’m focused(ish). I cook almost daily and continue to nurture this love affair in tandem with my other passions, where before I was all in on one thing and every other aspect of my life suffered. It is rare you find such a positive force in someone you only know from media. It is even more rare that the media said person produces is an honest reflection of themselves rather than a homogenized, dressed up, and highly edited version engineered for mass consumption. That’s Anthony, through and through.

For the year and a half since reading Kitchen Confidential, I have spent nights buried in the Les Halles and Appetites cookbooks Bourdain authored, mastering Hollandaise, Mac-n-Cheese, and whatever else I could convince people to let me feed them. I have even managed to scramble those damn eggs.

Through his mention of their work or the rabbit holes of online research, Anthony has lead me to ingest the work of chefs from Escoffier to Ripert, Keller to Chang. My entire February was dedicated to Marco. And, of course, I’ve binged through Parts Unknown on Netflix.

In 2003, my father shot himself. For a kid of 14, and no doubt because of the great care and concern of my mother, I was able to shoulder this relatively well. I refused to stay home from school the next day, I didn’t cry until two weeks after the funeral. I loved him very much and to this day I can’t say exactly why it took me a while to break down. Shock, I think.

Over the years that followed I slowly metabolized his absence. As many do when left behind to deal with a suicide, I needed to explain his actions. I knew the story of the morning leading up to it, I knew what the note said. I blamed no one for this death and chalked it up to a selfish act, a moment where he thought more of himself than his parents, his family, or his sons. I held that sadness close as I went through life. Graduating boot camp, touring Afghanistan and Iraq, graduating college and finding success in the workforce. Each of these milestones came with a “what would he say about this?”

It wasn’t until I found myself in an emotional pit that I started to understand what he might have felt. It is difficult for people to feel empathy with those who hurt them, and that difficulty is proportionate to the level of pain felt. Anger is easy and crying “selfish!” when affected by suicide is almost expected. What is not easy is putting yourself in their shoes and attempting to understand their final moments as something more complex than “the easy way out.” My own darkness was a light to shine on my past, and with that came understanding for how my father might have felt that final day. My sadness didn’t fade with this new perspective, but I gained strength and empathy.

Now, as I’m presented again with the loss of someone who has greatly impacted me, I feel strongly for his family and friends. I know their loss, their pain. The feeling of a chair being pulled out from under you and the prolonged sense of falling as you reach for something to hold onto. The fleeting moments where you think this might be bullshit. And as reality sinks in, the what ifs and whys.

Anthony Bourdain has become a part of my life, from the minuscule to the deeply meaningful.

I think of him when I watch a certain family member flick finger fulls of jarred crushed garlic onto meat (“Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screw-top jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic”). I think of him when I drink a negroni (a drink he turned many people on to, including myself). I think of him when I (still) almost grab my frying pan that just came out of the oven (a story from his early days as a cook in Kitchen Confidential), see a mega yacht docked in the harbor (a story from his nerve wracking post-divorce bender), or slip a packet of seasoning into my broth (a trick he used at the Culinary Institute of America).

I will always think of him, as I do my father, as I go through life wishing for more. His work increased my desire to broaden my horizons. To venture from the known on the menu to the untasted or unfamiliar both at the table and in life.

I plan to cook my way through his writing. Not only his recipes from the Les Halles grimoire of French brasserie fare, but those documented in his life’s work. There is too much to Tony for his magic to peter out anytime soon and I’m not ready to stop experiencing it.

To his family, friends, and all those who were his unknown companions, exploring the world from the couch to the kitchen and beyond, I hope you find peace.

Farewell, Anthony.