Goodbye Ozzy

Goodbye Ozzy Osbourne

Like a lot of folks around the world, I’ve had Ozzy Osbourne on repeat for days. His death caught me off guard—not in the “celebrity dies, cue the tribute posts” kind of way, but in the gut-punch, slow-burn grief kind of way. The kind that sneaks up on you and sits heavy. I didn’t expect to feel it this deep. But I do. And I want to try and explain why.

Anyone who knows me knows that 80s hair metal is my music. Poison. Guns & Roses. Alice Cooper. Foreigner. Motley Crüe. And yeah—Ozzy. What most people don’t know is how hard it was for me to even find that music, much less fall in love with it.

I grew up in a hyper-conservative, right-wing Mormon household. The kind where “Satanic Panic” wasn’t a warning label—it was taken as gospel truth. My mom would latch onto every half-baked urban legend about musicians and treat it like fact. She tried to ban D&D. Certain books. And of course, music. Especially the kind I ended up loving.

For the first 14 years of my life, my world was small. Church-approved, sanitized, and heavily filtered. But when I hit high school, everything cracked open.

Enter Donna and Markham—two of the best people I’ve ever met, then and now. The three of us stumbled headfirst into the world of 80s hair metal, and it felt like coming home. We listened constantly, we swapped albums, we got weird and loud and free. And we caught hell for it.

My CDs disappeared from my room more than once—thanks, Mom. My dad once hauled me into the bishop’s office, hoping the church could succeed where he’d failed. Meanwhile, he listened to classical music and Rush Limbaugh and couldn’t fathom what I saw in eyeliner and guitar solos.

But they couldn’t stop it. That music sank into me and stayed.
It shaped how I dressed, how I loved, how I rebelled.
It taught me how to scream back at the world without saying a word.
It gave me a place to belong.

And Ozzy was a huge part of that.
He was loud and flawed and real.
He didn’t hide his mistakes. He didn’t pretend to be better than he was.
He just was.
A father, a husband, a survivor, and yeah—a little batshit. But always honest.

He didn’t conform. He didn’t water himself down. And in doing that, he gave kids like me permission to be something other than what we were told to be.

His death feels like losing a weird, beloved uncle. One of the only adults who never expected you to behave. I’m sad he’s gone. Really, deeply sad. But more than anything, I’m grateful.

Grateful for the music.
For the rebellion.
For the reminder that sometimes, being “too much” is exactly what the world needs from you.

Goodbye, Ozzy.
And thank you.
For all of it.
You mattered. A lot.