This has been the first, and the last time I saw Anthony Bourdain alive…

JFK airport in New York was as busy as usual, even at 10 pm on Thursday night. This night on May 17th of 2018, we were going home. I got married two years ago, and my wife and I decided to go back home to Ukraine to visit the family and old friends as well as have some fun out there and travel around Europe. I hadn’t been home for ten years at that time, so I was super excited and, at the same time, a bit nervous about going back. A lot has changed since I was gone. Two nationwide revolutions happened in the country, three presidents changed seats, the annexation of Crimea, and the war in the East of Ukraine, just to mention a few. I was planning this trip for a while but never had a chance to do it. Finally, we were on our way.

We’ve turned in our luggage and, with two small carry-on bags, were roaming the airport searching for a place to kill the next three hours before our flight and, of course, the place where we could get a drink. We passed a few different cafes, which either didn’t look attractive enough or served something we wanted to eat. 

“This one looks good and has a bar too.” Said I to my wife as we were walking by another café.

“Yeah, do you want to go there?”

“Sure, let’s see what they have on the menu.”

The place was crowded as most of the places in New York. This one was packed, and there was a short line of people waiting to get in. The waiters were running around serving food and drinks, wiping down the tables after people who left and setting them up for new customers. We grabbed menus at the front desk and looked inside. There were some soups and salads, and burgers with fries and sandwiches, and various drinks available.

“I’ll have a burger and a beer for myself. What would you like, honey?” I asked my wife.

“I’ll have a salad and a mojito,” said my wife.

“Sounds good. Let’s get in line. It seems to be moving fast.”

“Ok.” Said my wife, as we left menus at the front desk and got in the line. We had a little less than three hours before our flight home. We were hungry and happy.

…2018 was a bad year. This trip out to Ukraine was really the only highlight and the most exciting moment, the rest of 2018 was just struggling and trying to make ends meet. I have lost two full-time jobs back in 2017, which lead me to 2018 fully unemployed and emotionally broken and financially desperate. That was a moment of truth in my life. I was young and angry at the world and social establishments, and all that horseshit that dominated my life and made me a slave to the system. I thought that corporate life was not for me anymore. I was an outcast. I couldn’t get myself together and focus and work well with other people. Fuck people. Why did everybody annoy me so much? Why did I always feel like I had to adjust to meet some criteria or someone else’s expectations? Why I never had an opportunity to focus on things that mattered to me the most?  I needed to make up my mind and try to do something that would bring me joy and help me become happy and fulfilled instead of miserable, frustrated, and always stressed the fuck out of my mind. So, that was it for me, and my relationship with a corporate world ‘slash’ career-building pursuit. 

I’ve ended 2017 and began 2018 with driving for Uber full-time and trying to become a writer. My favorite writer, Charles Bukowski, wrote his first novel in just a few weeks after quitting his full-time secure job at the post office. He was scared of this new radical change in life but at the same time it gave him enough motivation, fear, and passion to write. The novel “Post Office” was a success, and Bukowski never went back to a traditional workplace for a paycheck. His dream of becoming a writer and writing full-time did eventually came true and brought him money and international fame. I thought to myself back then, life is giving me a chance to try myself out as a writer. Now, I finally have all the time in the world to write, and there were plenty of unfinished short stories and a sample of a novel that I never had a chance to finish writing. I wanted to become a writer, and the time was right for me to do so. I started to write more while I was driving for Uber for the next eight months with no other income opportunities, no career choices, no job interviews, no hopes, nothing but my poor young soul, my car, and my laptop.

The last time I saw my one and only grandmother was in 2008, who was still alive then. My grandmother was the best grandmother ever. I love her dearly, and may God bless her soul. She was always there for us when my brother and I were young kids, and the parents had to leave the house, she always came over to sit and look after us, always brought some treats and cooked the best cookies in the world. My grandma always fed us about five times a day and would always get angry and scream at us when we refused to eat or when we were playing outside for too long, ignoring her calling us to come back home. She wanted to keep us inside, close proximity to her and protected because she was always worried about everything. We laughed at her, ignoring what she was saying to us. We never took her worries seriously. We knew we could get away with it. And we always did. Regardless of how angry and disappointed my grandma would become over our behavior, she was always happy when my parents returned home and handed us off to them proudly and never sold us out or complained about what a bunch of little assholes we were. 

We bought our flight tickets on a credit card about three months before the trip. I phoned my aunt to announce the great news and give them the heads up that I will be coming to visit soon. I asked her about the grandma, who lived with her. 

“She has been a little sick lately. She came from the church with a headache. Now she’s just resting, taking some pills.”

“Say ‘Hi’ to her, tell her I’ll be visiting soon,” said I. I wanted to give her a little hope and excitement. Maybe the hope of seeing one of her grandsons after such a long time will make her feel better. She was getting old, and she worked hard all her life. I knew that I had to see her one last time, knowing that I never have an opportunity to visit her often, and there isn’t much time left. It’s been ten years since my last visit home. Damn. I’ve put together a to-do list for places to see and people to meet before our trip, so we were on the schedule and just to make sure we stick to the plan. The two weeks we were to spend there at home after ten years of break isn’t much time after all. Visiting my grandmother was the number one priority for me. I knew she missed my brother and me a lot. Although my brother didn’t come this time, it would still be great for her to see at least one of us. My grandma was living with my widowed aunt and her two sons in another city and came to visit us only when my parents were away. So, I guess that was another reason why she was always missing us and was happy to see us every time she did. 

I remember when was the last time we spoke on the phone, two years prior, she turned 70. 70 is a significant age for Ukrainian people, especially older people who had to live through all the soviet horseshit times, trying to protect themselves from the fascists, Polish, Russians, and anything else that was in the way of freedom of the average Ukrainian folk. She lived a hard life. I phoned her together with my brother, and we said our greetings with a happy birthday. We asked her how she was doing. She had a stroke earlier that year, which affected her speech a bit, but she was very excited to hear us again and talk to us. She always said, “Come back home, you can leave here as well, we have everything you need. We have a river and a lake; you can go out swimming here too!” – was her response to us when we said we are going to the beach often in the summer. She was funny that way. That was the last time I spoke to her. 

She passed a month before my visit. She’s been waiting for too long. She died peacefully, all alone in the room, sitting on the couch while taking her last breaths. This was my only chance to see her one last time, and the time was against me. After ten years of waiting, I was just one month short. As I said, 2018 was a bad year. 

…I was never a fan of Anthony Bourdain, but the very few times I watched his TV show “Parts Unknown” on Netflix, I liked the guy and his show and the way he was about visiting some foreign places, countries, meeting the various people, eating their food as it was meant to be eaten. Anthony Bourdain seemed to be a great guy who always showed a lot of respect and curiosity to the people and their cultures, traditions, and their food. I appreciated that a lot, being an immigrant myself. I remember a few times when my wife was watching his show, I got caught up in it as well and couldn’t stop watching. This guy was simple, curious, cool, and adventurous. The very few episodes which I can recall were the one with Iggy Pop in Miami, Jack White in Tennessee, and of course, the most famous episode in Vietnam, with Barack Obama. He also did one episode in Ukraine, which I particularly didn’t like. There was always so much more to see and explore, and the times were different now.

…Back at the JFK airport, we’ve got a table shortly, and the waitress quickly arranged the set-up and took the order. We sat and waited. The drinks have arrived.

“To a great fucking trip, wifey, cheers! I still cannot believe we are going back home after so many years!”

“Me too. Cheers!” said my wife and sipped on her mojito.

I turned my head to the left for a minute and was watching the people walking by, throwing their traveling looks at the bar where we were sitting. For a moment, there were fewer people around. I sipped on my beer and continued to watch everyone walking by. A tall guy appeared, strolling in the almost empty hall, not rushing anywhere. Even if he wasn’t a celebrity, there was something about him that would hold your attention for a moment to stare and watch him walk. He stood out from the crowd. He was wearing the green long-sleeved shirt, blue washout jeans, the chukka boots, and backpack behind his back. His steps were long and slow and there was almost no energy or urgency in his walking at all. For a second, he seemed super exhausted and bored at the same time. He knew where he was going exactly, and it seemed like he’s been here a hundred times. I looked at his face and I saw the most tired and depressed expression I have ever seen. I’m sure there is always a bit of makeup on the face when shooting an episode, but in real life, these celebrities look much harder. This guy’s face looked as hard as a stone. It took me a few seconds to get my memory working. I looked at my wife.

“Hey look, isn’t it Anthony Bourdain from that Netflix food-travel show?”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Said my wife staring at Anthony Bourdain walking by.

“How cool is that?! Do you want to come up to him and say hi?”

“I don’t know,” said my wife with a shy smile on her face, but she was always like that. She was shy and well mannered.

“I think it will be cool to say hi to him. It is not every day that you will see a celebrity up close under the normal circumstances, especially the cool guy like Bourdain. But then I remembered the “celebrity rule” in New York, something about not approaching a celebrity in New York because everyone was a free human being and had a right to freely walk around without being hustled. 

“I guess we’ll just stay here and let the guy get to his flight,” I said sadly, feeling a bit stupid about the whole excitement about running up to him.

“He must be traveling somewhere to shoot another episode,” said my wife.

“Yeah, I guess so. Damn, he just looks rough. He must be fucking hating these airports and traveling. We got out once in ten years to go to Ukraine and the whole trip planning and the baggage packing almost drove me nuts. This guy travels all the fucking time, he has almost no personal life. How fucking sad is that?” Said I realized how cool it is to visit all these interesting exotic and unusual places that he did but then, there is always a price to pay. We continued drinking and soon after the food arrived and we ate. The dinner at the bar was nice, and the second beer was even better than the first one. We were talking about the trip, places, and people we wanted to see, how we should arrange the arrival and meetings, and all that good stuff. It was really fun and a happy time for us. It was still hard to believe that we were finally going home. We had less than two hours before our departure. While we were walking over to our gate. I was trying to spot Anthony Bourdain somewhere in the airport, but he was nowhere to be found. In less than two hours we were on the plane getting ready for a flight. It has been our first trip outside the United States in ten years, and as we’ve discovered later, it was the last trip for Anthony Bourdain…

We had a great time in Ukraine. We have been able to visit all the relatives and close friends. We walked the streets of magnificent Lviv, the second Paris of Europe, and ate and drank at the best restaurants in town. We felt like we were in Bourdain’s show traveling, exploring new places, meeting people, eating food and drinking drinks, and just having a good time. Ukraine really did change a lot in the time of our absence. There was enough time to become a much better place to live and travel. It has been a brand-new world for us. I was pleasantly surprised and happy that things were improving across the board everywhere. I got together with my classmates, the very few people who have responded to my Facebook initiative to meet up, get a drink, and catch up. 

We visited my godmother in northern Italy. We went to Venice, Florence, Dolomiti, and Verona. We ate great Italian foods and gelatos and drank great Italian coffee and wine. These were the moments to remember, and we always will remember this trip. There were moments that I felt like I was experiencing Anthony’s Bourdain life, and the places we visited and the food we ate will always be in our memories and will always remind us of our great and unforgettable trip home.

On June 8th, one week after we returned to the US, I opened a Facebook and read the tragic news: “Anthony Bourdain dead at 61.” What a shame, what a loss! I think I will regret the fact of not saying hi to him at the airport when I had a chance. Would that change anything? I know that all these little things we do in our lives and every single word that we say out loud or even in our thoughts do have an impact on the world around us and on us primarily. Whatever you do or don’t do today will eventually impact your tomorrow and the near future of you and your relatives, friends, family, other people who you wouldn’t even think about. Life is a strange thing, and most of us never know how to live it properly. 

It seems like all we do throughout our entire life is to “figure it out.” We often forget the greatest truth about life – nobody got out of it alive. Some people died because of old age, or disease, or heart problems, cancers, diabetes, accidents, alcohol, and some just decided that they’ve had enough of it all. It is hard to imagine what goes on in the head of a person that is about to commit suicide. Something dark comes over one’s mind and soul like numbness, and there are no feelings involved. They just do it. It is also hard to judge anybody who has been struggling and fighting with depression or drugs and alcohol and eventually killed themselves. I wish people would just stop for a moment and give themselves another chance. Another chance to think things through, another opportunity to take a fresh breath, another chance to live a life that wasn’t too nice or fair to them.

It is always sad to see people go away however they went. It is especially unfortunate to see people who died who were indeed good people. Great and trustworthy people with a sense of humanity and reality in them are hard to find. Anthony Bourdain was one of them. He’d show you the saddest place on the planet with the most disadvantaged people around living in the toughest conditions eating some weird shit, and he would join them and learn about them and expose them to the world to see and learn and open their eyes to all those people and their culture and their lives. 

Soon after Anthony’s Bourdain death, The New Yorker has re-published his first original article they published years ago, the one that made him famous. The article was about working at the restaurant in New York and describing the system of how the restaurant worked with frank and great details about the food and food preparation and orders and other stuff. The one thing that I felt stupid about was undoubtedly guilty of, was always ordering a well-done burger or steak. Bourdain was describing that these well-done meats were the worst fucking piece of meat at the restaurant, possibly old, and perhaps re-used, and sure as shit didn’t have the quality of a nice piece of steak it should be. I’ve read this article with special interest because I do relate to the restaurant life a lot. I’ve spent eight years of my life working as a waiter at various luxury Russian restaurants in Northeast Philly. 

What he described in his article wasn’t necessarily all new to me, but it was true, and it was funny to read, and I did enjoy that article a lot. I wish I could ever describe my restaurant experience in that fashion. One thing everyone can learn from Anthony Bourdain is to be open-minded and true with other people and respectful and understanding of their cultures. Sometimes it seems like we all forget that we are however different we are, we do belong to one culture or another but only with an open mind can we truly understand each other and will learn to live with each other peacefully and if everything goes well, we can enjoy each other’s food as well. Cheers to you, mister Anthony Bourdain! You were the man, and you will live in people’s hearts and minds forever.