In memory of Bob Weir (1947-2026)

The day I went to heaven was both the happiest and saddest day of my life. I only call it heaven because I don’t know any other word for it. Paradise? Eternity? It was beyond words.

I died, I guess. The life I had known up to that point was over, I know that much. The thing that was on the other side of that old life wasn’t just better, it got better exponentially and constantly, because time does not exist in heaven. It didn’t get better moment by moment, it expanded in the moment, an explosion of ecstasy.

You were there of course. How could it be heaven without you? You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have to. I didn’t say anything either. We were beyond words. But we understood each other’s thoughts and feelings, and they were hilarious. We couldn’t stop laughing.

The sad part isn’t even that sad. The sad part is that the time that doesn’t exist, sometimes it still does. And people find words for things that are beyond words, and we pretend to accept them because we don’t have any better words because the words don’t exist. The saddest part of all is the way the thoughts and feelings made us laugh so hard, due to the pernicious effects of time, that doesn’t exist there but really, really does here, turn thoughts and feelings into something that make us cry just as hard as we laughed.

Except. But, wait. There is an advantage that lingers from that eternal moment spent behind the pearly gates. The word we give it – two sizes too small – is love. And it turns everything it touches into heaven.