Love You To Death

Nice Lettering on this Tat from Robert

 in Louisiana. Thanks for sharing

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A Big THANK YOU to Manuela (aka Dark Angel) (aka X-DA-X)  for sharing this very personal story ... From The Netherlands :

Although I saw TON in concert 5 times I never got to meet Pete.

Nevertheless he's been a big part of my life for the past 18 years.

So here's my story, I hope you don't mind me sending it to you, I needed to write it down...

The year was 1993, I was 16 and I was hanging out with some friends at a local poolhall.

One of my friends walked in, handed me a cd and said "here, this is new and I think you'll like it!"

It was a black and green cover with 2 girls....

When I came home later that afternoon I ran upstairs to my room and put my cd-player on loud.

I listened to the album while reading the booklet. And I listened to it again, and again....

This was something I had never heard before..... 

The music went from left to right, up and down and all the way around, amazing!

And that voice!! OMG!!! That voice would make any 16 yo girl melt....

The very next day I went to our local musicshop and bought anything I could find from TON.

Since that day TON has been and will always be my favorite band.

A love was born, never to die....

I have had my fair share of ups and downs in my life and music has always been there for support, to let steam off, to dream, to escape, everything.

I listen to a lot of bands and all kinds of music, here's a very short list of my favorite albums:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses / everything

Life Of Agony - River Runs Red

Alice In Chains - Dirt

Sisters Of Mercy - Floodland

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath   (TON covers are MUCH better though!!)

Pink Floyd - The Wall

My first reaction is always to grab a TON cd. It always fits perfectly, no matter what mood i'm in.

TON was there when i fell in love, when i was in a fight, when i was happy, or drunk, or stoned, or dreaming, or when i was depressed.

TON was there for me when my relationship ended after 4 years and i moved back home.

When I was 21 my father celebrated his birthday 2 days early. Normally we would never celebrate a birthday to early because we didn't wanna jinx it. However that year we did because in the following 3 weeks my parents had other obligations. His birthday was on a monday so we had a big party on saturday. And ofcourse we would joke around a bit, 'if anything happens tomorrow we at least had this party!' Little did we know then..

My boyfriend at the time and I came home around 4 o'clock in the morning. Only 4,5 hours later we were rudely awakened by this incredible annoying noise of the doorbell ringing constantly. It was my sister's boyfriend, we had to come with him because something happened to my father....

Only 15 minutes later we arrived at my parents house but by then my father was already dead of hart failure.

(you can imagine that I will never ever celebrate a birthday too soon again.)

I saw TON live 5 times in Holland and Belgium, sadly I never actually got to meet them.

I came very close 2 times but I missed my chance (which i still kick my own ass for!)

I even gave a heads up to whatever boyfriend I had at the time, if I get the opportunity then I will forget about everything and anyone else!

My current boyfriend, we have a serious relationship since 2003, was really scared the 2 times I went to festivals where TON was playing haha.

I love my man to death, he means everything to me but Pete has always been the prime example of 'The perfect man'!

Last year was a very bad year. On the 15th of february my best friend got the news that they're stopping her treatment for cancer, she died january 10th of this year. On the 26th of march my boyfriend lost his job because his company went belly up. On the 2nd of april 2 good friends lost their daughter, only 20 minutes after she was born. On the 12th of april my uncle died of cancer. And then came the news that Peter died..... I cried the rest of the day. For the next 3 months I listened to TON only. Even though I never met him, it still hurts... because he meant so much to me for 18 years. This year up until now has been mostly about reflecting and remembering, reading For the love of Pete Steele and thinking about friends and family, the ones that are gone but also the ones that are still here. There also was one good thing in 2010. My sister gave birth to her first daughter and my goddaughter. She's only 10 months old but I spoil her rotten hahaha.

For the past 18 years I have listened to TON on a weekly basis, sometimes a little less, sometimes a lot more.I don't think they will ever descent from the number 1 position on my list, I still love it as much as I did in 1993....

So thank you Peter for being a part of most of my life, rest in peace green man.

I will always love you to death and now it's halloween in heaven..... (I could go on and on with wordplay but I won't ;-p)

See you on the other side!

Thank you Ratajczyk family for sharing, please don't stop!

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Check out video for Profit of Doom on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfzOqZ9f4Jg