Death makes bakers of us all

The day I stopped being vegan was January 8, 1997, the day a colleague at Internews Network, Chris Gehring, was found murdered in his apartment in Almaty, Kazakhstan.  I can't say that I was very close to Chris, but since we both worked for the same crazy, far-flung operation of do-gooders, we'd met, we'd emailed.  He was an acknowledged star -- a prince among men was the feeling I always got -- universally admired.  A leader.  Found dead in his apartment at 28 in a weird robbery-gone-wrong.

And just like that, my outlook turned upside-down.  I'd been vegan for 9 years, since 1988 or so, since not long after I realized that my son was allergic to dairy products, started reading about factory farms, and taken my vegetarianism a step farther.  It was a huge pain in the ass in those days to be vegan, nowhere to eat, little understanding of this dietary choice.  But we persevered, for years and years.  Even as I started traveling more for work, to parts of the world where this self-imposed dietary restriction was unthinkable, was impractical, I remained committed.  For politeness' sake, I'd eat what was offered to me in Kiev or wherever, but return to my animal-free regimen at home.  It felt right to me. 

But just like that, on the day that Chris died: my veganism vanished.  I remember walking stunned to a corner market near the office, buying a box of assorted honey-sweet baklava and distributing them one by one, desk by desk, acutely aware that this very dripping sweetness we were about to eat, Chris would never taste again.

He was gone.

Who was I to refuse the goodness of what life had to offer?  Who was I to bind myself so tightly inside this little corset of No when one day, I too would be gone and never again be able to savor milk chocolate or a bit of delectable cheese. Or a mouthful of honey.

That veganism to which I had been so passionately devoted suddenly seemed to me so silly, such a diminishment of the range of tastes and flavors and experiences that life has to offer.  I felt like I had been living in a tiny box for so long, cramped.  With Chris's death, the lid blew off.  What had I been hiding from? 

I've never looked back.  I didn't experience any of the mythical illness or discomfort upon returning to the diet I'd been raised on -- good food: meat, dairy, sweets, gluten.  I've been healthy and strong ever since, and the burden I hadn't realized I'd imposed on my family -- my mother-in-law particularly, who, even though we never expected it or asked for it, taught herself whole news ways of cooking in order to accomodate our narrow palates -- was gone.  Eating out was easy.  I forgot so completely about veganism that when we've hosted parties since, I've almost always had to be reminded to lay out a vegetarian option for those whose choice it is not to eat animals.

Believe me: I get it, the whole argument against eating animals.  I would never debate the issue or try to talk someone out of veganism.  I get it about factory farms. I think about my purchases and choose wisely.  I grow a lot of our own food, too.  

But here's the deal: death is a part of life, for all creatures.  As a small-farmer, I'm acutely aware of this, turning the dead into the compost that will feed the fresh come spring. In the words of my teacher Douglas Brooks, "Everybody is eating somebody else."  Word.

My choice, while I can still eat, is to eat everything, everything presented, to experience as wide a variety of these flavors as I can.  For as long as I can.

Faced with my sister's swiftly-approaching death, I'm back in the same boat, feeling that same almost-desperate passion for taste, fixing pans of enchiladas, baking batches of cookies, making chicken stock -- filling the house with the smells and tastes of the Living, for as long as possible.  My sister, the foodie: this world is already lost to her. I feel like I owe it to her, to life itself, to savor it all.

We're not here forever.  And for as long as I'm here, I can promise you this: I'm eating.  I'm eating everything, transforming it all into more love for this life, for as long as I can.

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