This past Tuesday I was working when I got a message on my phone from a friend who just saw the news that Ozzy Osbourne had passed away. Earlier in the month he’d given his final show during the Black Sabbath Tribute in his home town of Birmingham, England. Total legend.

I remember the first time I encountered Black Sabbath was when I was about 16. I primarily listened to new wave stuff in the 80’s. I had also picked up playing guitar around then. My guitar instructor played me “War Pigs” on a cassette tape and then sent me home with it to practice. First, the song was like nothing I’d ever heard and second, I really liked it. I ended up buying the album, “Paranoid” after that. Sabbath was my gateway into other metal.

I remember the first time Mario and I saw Ozzy during an Ozzfest. There were a lot of good bands that day, but Ozzy’s performance was definitely something special. This was back in the late 1990s. He had a voice that was one of a kind and definitely had a strong stage presence. We’d both reference that show for years later.

In 2002 we started watching, The Osbournes, the reality t.v. show that featured Ozzy, his wife Sharon, their two kids Jack and Kelly and a whole array of pets. Reality t.v. was not something I even liked, but Mario did, so I sat down and watched it one day with him. The show was goofy and funny and Mario and I both got a kick of it and watching Ozzy’s antics every week. I’m pretty sure that was a “realty” show where there was no acting involved. You got to see the real Ozzy during that time, which definitely made the show.

My heart goes out to Sharon now in a way that only another widowed person can acknowledge. Something she said last year stuck with me, “We’ve gone through some sh*t and back again… and we’re still together.” They really had been through it. And that’s really the thing that struck a chord with me. You do go to hell and back with your spouse when drugs and/or alcohol is involved. There is a lot of darkness and a lot of bad things and a lot of soul searching. At the end of the day, you try to find the light within the person you knew and who they’ve become through substance abuse.

The decision to leave or stay is very personal and individual. For me, it helped to know Mario before the heavy drinking started. He often put up a facade for others, but he let me see who he actually was and I did the same for him. It was this knowledge that I held on to. There was frustration. There was full on anger. There was disappointment and heartache. There was a full range of emotions from experiences we shared while he wrestled with depression and addiction. And yes, at the core of it all was a love that even at the worst of times, I knew would never be replicated in my life. At times, it seemed no one but us actually understood it.

Drugs and alcohol do not make the person, but they can make the person do and say things they never would if they were not under the influence. Mario was someone who, at his core, was very self-conscious and down on himself. I noticed this in art school. It was obvious he was bursting with talent and creativity, but he was his own worst critic and others criticizing him sent him into a dark tailspin.

Shortly after I first met Mario in art school we were complaining about certain instructors and courses and I’ll never forget how he told me had been working on this painting for a class. He’d made this 5 foot canvas that was like the shape of a chevron. That alone impressed me because it’s difficult enough to stretch a regular canvas on a frame you built, but to stretch one on a funky shape was totally wild to me. The painting was made of of very precise geometric shapes in different colors. Well, he took it to class where everyone, including the teacher critiqued it to death. He stormed out of the class with it, down the hall, out the door to the balcony and threw it over the balcony of the art building (he did end up going back and collecting it later but it still ended up in the trash, which was a travesty).

I think about that now and then as the perfect metaphor for his life.

It’s not just me who’s mentioned off hand that it’s amazing Ozzy made it to 76. His story mirrors many other’s who struggle with addiction … multiple trips to rehab, or simply getting clean/sober then going back again. Most don’t make it into their 7th decade. Plenty don’t even make it to 30. Mario didn’t make it to 50. Sticking it out through the good times and the bad with someone struggling with addiction is not for the faint of heart.