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I Was A Chef and My Brother Took His Own Life, Too
The Bear — A TV show that sliced right to the bone
Although it didn’t look as good as The Bear, I was a chef and my brother departed this world by his own hands, too. The first season of The Bear TV show stirred a deep cauldron of nostalgia inside me, awakening memories that had been dead still for quite some time.
When whales die they create something known as whalefall. This is the transformation that occurs from giant floating deceased carcasses, to dissipating sinking particulate debris, drifting slowly like snowfall, to the bottom of the ocean.
This is similar to what happens when a loved one dies. Their memories very slowly break apart and fade into the depths. The brotherfall that had accumulated at the bottom of my consciousness was dredged into lucid fore frontal sentiment again. Brightness singed the edges of that old and pallid burial ground, whisking it into a technicolour vortex of revived and flashing imagery. The heat and energy of a kitchen. The grief and feeling of loss. It came back to me acutely.
The soundtrack at the time my brother passed probably wasn’t as groovy as the show, and the colour grading doesn’t pop quite as pleasing in my mind, but the blades were as sharp and the flames were as scorching and the pace was just as…
