I miss everyone. I miss Anthony Bourdain.

I wrote this in the throes of grief two years ago. My feelings haven’t changed, but the Saab’s been replaced by a larger Volvo; the Bernie sticker was transferred over and joined by another.




I can’t stand it. Anthony Bourdain is dead and Donald Trump’s not.

I’ve been crying like I lost someone known to me, not just the voice on the shows I taped in case someday I’d get to the places he’d seen.

I regret the so-out-of-character tossing away of the printout I carried on that “Perfect Day in Hanoi.” The rationale was that paper is heavy, and I could always print these pages again. I remember hesitating above the can: But now it’s too late; those sheets bore the crumpled, fish-sauce-stained evidence that I was there, and, through his gift, he was there with me too.

It would’ve been easy to only envy Anthony Bourdain: Instead, he was revered. My friend James has also been affected by this adventurer’s death. He’s not much of a cook, having had to do that for himself when he was just six. He won’t eat a fish with eyeballs staring, but he’ll get on a bike, rev the engine, and inhale the world’s scents up close, just as Bourdain did. In Hanoi, after treating President Obama to that iconic six-dollar dinner of beer and bun cha, Bourdain said, “Right after this, Mr. President, I’m getting on a scooter and I’m going to disappear into the flow of thousands of people.” How sad that that freedom ceased being enough.

The day after the horrid news came, James and I talked about depression, and he revealed to me that there are times he’s so weighed down he fears he won’t ever, ever leave his chair. But like Bourdain, he knows the power of movement: He’ll force himself to go outside, and empty his car of its collection of cups. “It’s something,” he said. On a day I thought I couldn’t laugh, I did. Thank you, James, for that brief reprieve.

I’m not doing terribly in the cup department, but I do have a bunch of stuff weighing down my old Saab. In the rear, there are sad antiques packed in labeled boxes waiting to land in a depressing storage space. I have to get to that. There’s a huge green umbrella from a long-ago market day in Sienna, and excessive shopping bags for our blessed, abundant sustenance cramming the floorboards below two car seats. A glass bottle or two of Gerolsteiner, so no one ingests plastic melted by the sun.

The other day, my four-year-old grandson Felix said he thought the car might be growing too small for him. He always tells me he likes my car, which makes me happy, cars being as important to this boy as his approval is to me. I won’t let him on the roof, but I do let him scramble up to sit on the hood for our backyard discussions. He seems to like those too.

Felix hasn’t yet asked about the “Feel the Bern” sticker on the back bumper, but I’m sure he will. It depicts in outline Bernie’s impish smile, his glasses, and his unruly hair; the outlines of a hopeful future. That bumper sticker’s a source of pride, but also an enraging reminder. This man’s a mensch, as was Bourdain: Instead we live with the deranged.

After a recent afternoon at my house – play at Nana Nan’s – I drove Felix and his little sister cross-town, home. Everyone was happy with fun behind us and more fun ahead for them that night. As I unbuckled Ami from her car seat, I spontaneously gushed, “I love you both so much, I just can’t stand it!” Felix was watching me tend to his sister, and -- his face beaming with unfettered, loving reciprocity -- he shouted, “And I can’t stand you!” My burst of laughter took him by surprise, but he clearly relished in my delight.

Bourdain never thought he’d make a good father, but it was evident he liked kids and that he deeply loved his daughter. Of course I never presumed I’d get to share any stories with him, about street food or far-away places, let alone pedestrian tales of little ones learning the complexities of words in their driveway, but I think he would’ve liked this story. It touches on our ability to communicate even when literal meaning is beyond our reach. The language of love transcends translation.

Anthony Bourdain embraced complexity. He always showed us that more than one thing at a time can be true. Legless Laotians can embrace Americans despite the landmines. Cambodians can look ahead, not just back at The Killing Fields. A meal savored sitting on a plastic stool in a Hanoi alley can be as fulfilling as one prepared by his best friend, served up in Le Bernadin’s sleek dining room.

Anthony Bourdain was joyful and brave; now we know he was also sad and afraid. There’s no solace in the fact that he wrote his own end, that he propelled himself to life’s furthest reach. I can’t stand it now, and I never will.