In Tribute

Someone dies, and soon (sometimes within minutes) people rush to the scene of the death or some location significant to the deceased and leave flowers, candles, and stuffed animals, sometimes with a note or card.

Of course, I'm referring to the throngs showing up at Brasserie Les Halles, the French restaurant where Anthony Bourdain plated Coq Au Vin and sauced Onglet A L'echalote several decades ago.

Make mine crêpe, s'il vous plaît.

Bourdain chose to step off the planet, which was his decision...his last one, to be sure. Kate Spade, the same, in the same manner, they say.

We're hearing now that Ms Spade was consumed with the suicide of Robin Williams, and followed his lead.

All this speaks to the need for mental health care in this nation and around the world. It's funny (in a mordant way) that we will break our necks to seek professional help when he have a sore neck, or, for three or four days, take to our beds with a cold in the head (men only.)

But when something is wrong with our minds, our emotions, we tend to say, "Oh, I have to deal with this on my own."  The stigma against seeking psychological help is a strong one, but if these suicides teach us anything, maybe it will be the lesson that these feelings can be helped by qualified, trained persons.

The first step is to know the number for help: 1-800-273-8255.

The second step is to be brave enough to share the number with people you know to be in need of the help they offer at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. All weekend long, we heard time and again that the misperception that simply talking about suicide will lead someone to commit suicide is just that, a misperception. Talk to people! It just might keep them around.

And while I'm up here on this bar of soap, I'm going to say this: If you have money enough, and feeling enough, to run out and buy flowers and/or candles and/or stuffed animals in honor of Anthony Bourdain, that's fine.  But if you have that money to spend, you also have money to buy flowers and/or candles and/or stuffed animals for some lonely person in your family, workplace, acquaintanceship, or neighborhood at the same time.

Surprise THAT person with a sweet gift while they're still here to appreciate it with you.