COLUMN: Memories of a Madman Flooding Back on Somber Day

CHEYENNE -- Mom said I couldn't go.

With Marilyn Manson in the lineup, Ozzfest 1997 was seemingly out of the cards for 13-year-old me. The shock rocker was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in those days. He was Satan reincarnated. The worst of the worst.

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It wasn't him I wanted -- no, needed -- to see that day inside Mile High Stadium.

I begged. I pleaded. I made promises.

Why the urgency? Two words: Black Sabbath.

The originators of the heavy metal sound, for just the third time since 1979, were reuniting on stage. Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin played the tunes. Ozzy Osbourne, my childhood idol, was not just singing a near two-hour set with his former mates, a solo performance would precede.

Can't miss stuff.

To my mom, Ozzy was the Marilyn Manson of her day, known for off-the-wall antics, namely biting the heads off a dove and a bat. He was also arrested in 1982 for urinating on the Alamo in downtown San Antonio, among many other eyebrow raising events.

You know, rock and roll things.

But to her, he was simply a "devil worshipper."

Reluctantly, though, she agreed to my pilgrimage. I'm still grateful to this day.

Ozzy, then pushing 50 years old, was every bit the wild man he was in his heyday. He bolted across the stage, cursing at ear-splitting levels and tossing water onto the lucky ones below. Though you could hardly understand a word coming out of the Englishman's mouth in a daily conversation, his singing voice was perfection.

When Black Sabbath took its turn, you knew you were in the presence of greatness. The riffs. The tones. The eerie vocals. It was before its time. It was timeless.

Those tracks helped me navigate the hardest time of my young life.

After the death of my grandfather, my hero in every sense of the word, I was lost. I was confused. Mainly, I was heartbroken. The tears that well up in my eyes to this very day bring all of those feelings back to the surface.

I discovered this music at my lowest point, living with a father I barely knew, nearly 1,000 miles away from home.

My own misery landed me in that unwanted place, leaving my mom no choice but to call my bluff. I was off to Arizona and into the unknown. At the time, I didn't care, either. I was unreachable, broken to my core. Bad decisions and rebellion followed. Without my grandpa, not much else seemed to matter.

That's when I found heavy metal.

That's when I found Ozzy.

It was my escape, literally and figuratively.

It got me out of the house, a place I never wanted to be. I would roam the neighborhood or simply sit in the yard, earphones on, away from it all. The sadness that lingered would lift, if only for an hour or two at a time. It also served as an outlet, believe it or not, calming my new-found anger.

This was my music. It still is, even at 41.

To my mom's annoyance, I did become a Marilyn Manson fan on that sweltering summer day in Denver. And Pantera. And Type O Negative. The list goes on -- and on. All heavy, all the time.

When I earned $20, a new band shirt was ultimately on my back. Often those would "disappear," courtesy of the woman of the house, who found many offensive.

I've named two dogs Ozzy. I wrote those same four letters on my left knuckles every day throughout junior high. Yearly book reports followed. A grin always creased my face, watching my classmates squirm when they heard about his many exploits.

Mom never quite understood the love affair. Make no mistake, that's exactly what it is, too.

Today's news only solidified that.

Ozzy Osbourne is dead at the age of 76.

Parkinson's disease took its toll. So did numerous spine surgeries and a near-fatal staph infection. He lived hard, getting booted from the band he co-founded in 1968. Substance abuse, something Ozzy struggled with throughout his life, was the main culprit.

Just five weeks ago, Ozzy, along with a laundry list of the scene's heaviest hitters, took the stage in his hometown of Birmingham, a working-class city more than two hours northwest of London.

It was billed as his last bow, one final goodbye. He could no longer do what he loved.

He likely died of a broken heart.

I watched every minute of that 10-hour marathon. Tribute after tribute. It was the best $30 I've ever spent. During Ozzy's final rendition of his 1991 hit, "Mama, I'm Coming Home," there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Mine, either.

It certainly felt like the end. Turns out, it was.

Though the grief is real on this day, I can't help but smile through the emotion. This one hurts, there's no two ways about it, but it also serves as a reminder of what his music meant to so many.

It's been my personal soundtrack.

It changed my life.

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