The Great Pool Party in the Sky (Letter 2 To A Friend in Mourning)
This is the second of two lengthy messages I shared with a close friend who was grieving the sudden loss of her husband.
The first one is here.
Greatest Pool Party in the Sky
...listen, you gotta feel what you feel. It sickens me that you are in this darkness. If I knew a way to light the road, I would — in a second.
People will say, “you gotta be strong,” “fake it till you make it,” “he wouldn't want you to be feeling this way” All fucking nonsense! Feel what you feel. Try to find the edges. Don’t worry about moving his stuff. It's too soon. Keep him everywhere around you. Immerse yourself in your continuing love affair. His shoes can stay right where they damn are. You'll know when it's time to move them, if ever. And yes, that morning coffee is going to be different and difficult in ways you never ever imagined could be so painful, but you can still have coffee with him each and every morning.
Right now there are ~8 billion people living in the world. Another 108 billion of our brothers and sisters are in that other place; the place they call heaven. I suppose all I have to say about that is heaven help us!
I've been teasing you for days about a special event you have coming up. You have a lot to prepare for. So, it's time you know about the GREATEST POOL PARTY IN THE SKY
Heaven? Who knows. Maybe yes, maybe no. I don't know. What I do know about for sure is the Greatest Pool Party in the Sky. My brother told me about — says it's the most fun he's ever had.
You see, there, things are way different than here. There's no better example of this than the pool they have there — a massive, humongous, gargantuan pool — a pool so big it's bigger than the entire United States. And every year, around this time, they have the biggest, greatest pool party EVER at that pool.
It’s a beautiful day in heaven. Always is. It's never too hot or too sunny, and the sky is always a crystal clear, brilliant blue. You smell the food of hundreds of cultures being grilled on grills the size of Vermont. You see groups of children with these big, wide grins playing catch with balls the size of buildings, and grandmas and grandpas and great aunts floating around in the pool on floats the size of NYC.
The Greatest Pool Party in the Sky is heaven's annual can't-miss event. Everyone’s there, all 108 billion of them and they are jamming. Bob Marley and the un-surviving members of the Wailers are playing a 3-month long, live version of Iron Lion Zion. As you walk around this epic pool party you are taken in by how chill and relaxed everyone is. You’ve never seen so many people smile and walk around as if they were floating. You’ve never heard so much laughter. Why you wonder? Well, for one, heaven's annual can't-miss Greatest Pool Party in the Sky isn't a typical pool party. The hamburgers and hotdogs don't get cold, the watermelon slices don't get warm, the towels are always dry and delicious, and it doesn't end after a typical three or four hours. No, no, no, the Great Pool Party in the Sky rages on for ten, fifteen, twenty days. No one has a curfew, bc no one in heaven has to sleep or show up to work the next day.
But the real reason for everyone's mass-relaxed, chilled-out, zoned-in state is that unlike us none of them — not a single one — carry any burdens of any kind. You see, up there existential worry, dilemma, anxiety, and the agony of loss doesn't exist. Even better, none of them have any memory that it ever did. In fact, it's probably a good idea to think of them up there when you need a break from being you down here.
The other thing to know is that while we don't see nearly as many smiles here as they do there, and we don't hear nearly as much laughter here as they do there, and we don't get to spend months at the sickest pool party ever like they do, we do eventually smile again and we do eventually laugh again. We even go to pool parties again. It's true. Those of us stuck here in our human predicament, saddened and broken by the moment, we even get to feel happy again. At least it's something to look forward to, right?
The reason I even bring up the 108 billion of us that have ever lived is bc on those days when I am flattened and pained and thinking that no one has experienced anything like the kind of agony I'm feeling, it helps me enormously to remember how wrong I am.
Think about it — if millions and billions of people, many, in fact most of whom, have survived circumstances far, far, far more tragic and horrific than anything I could even imagine, then just maybe, so can I. It doesn't mean we're not sad, or shouldn't be, and it doesn't mean we're not experiencing the worst pain we're ever likely to know, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't grieve with every fiber in our soul — WE SHOULD. All it means is that MAYBE one day we won't feel like this or MAYBE one day we'll feel a tiny, little less pained then we feel now, and if we're a tiny little less pained than we feel now, then who knows, maybe one day a barely perceptible, insignificant little smile will break across our face even though we have no idea why. And just imagine, if that were to happen then why couldn't we also smile on purpose bc we wanted to or because we needed to. And despite our tragedy and loss, if we're learning to smile again isn't it also possible that we could learn to appreciate the laughter of a child when we hear it, or even better, appreciate and enjoy our own laughter? And if all we did was laugh a single time then we couldn't foreclose the possibility that it could happen a second and third and even forth time, right?
And what of this laughter? Well, I was thinking about it last night and it occurred to me that you and I are pretty lucky people. I know that "lucky" is the furthest thing you feel at the moment, but seriously, we are lucky. You are and I am. How many people do you know and how many have you met or seen throughout your entire life that laugh as much and as deeply and genuinely as you do? How many find humor not only in the truly fun, funny, and hilarious things, but also in the tragic, gross, disgusting, and downright hellish things? NOT MANY. And though laughter is not the end-all be-all, it is A ROAD BACK TO THE ROAD BACK…….
.......and that's important, very, very fucking important because just imagine how much it will matter when you get your chance to show up at the GREATEST POOL PARTY IN THE SKY. Stay with me now. We're going to heaven.
Just before you walk up the driveway of the house where this insane party is held every year, you'll pause to adjust your bikini and straw, floppy hat to make it just right for Jeffrey. You'll remember the butterflies you felt in your belly when you showed up to your first pool party during the summer you turned 14. You knew that the boy from school you have the biggest crush was going to be there at that party, and your best just whispered in your ear that she heard he's into you. Yes, those butterflies. You'll feel a swell of excitement and anticipation better than any high you've ever had your entire life.
Your friends will tell you how amazing you look and how lucky Jeffrey is and in heaven they will mean it because in heaven every single thing is exactly as it appears to be. As you walk along the side of the house to the chain link fence you'll cross through to finally enter, you'll hear the music growing louder and louder and clearer and groovier. My god, you'll think, Bob Marley and Tuff Gong's voice never sounded so majestic,
and they saying iron like a lion in Zion;
Iron like a lion in Zion;
Iron lion Zion
When you finally arrive, despite the most massive sea of humanity you've ever seen and the nagging desire to look around for Marilyn Monroe or find out what really happened to JFK, the first person you'll see is Jeffrey. WTF? What's Jeffrey doing all the way up there, 10-11 miles up in the sky on a diving board platform the size of the Great Plains watching Bob Marley lead 108 billion people in a dance-fueled celebration the likes and sheer size of which is unimaginable to us mere mortals. You'll immediately recognize the small grin on his face as he moves back and forth to the beat in his chilled-out, easy way.
You know exactly why he's smiling bc you know that he only found out a short while ago that you're coming to the party and so he climbed to the high board to show his queen who's king…..
You'll desperately want to run to him so you can kiss and hug him and hold him, but it'll occur to you that climbing all 173,000 ladder steps is going to take a long, long time, but just as you shrug off that thought and begin to make your way over there, Jeffrey will launch himself off the high dive. After nailing a heaven's world record 4319 flips into a triple-axle gainer so steady the crowd will roar with applause so loud and monumental the pool will shake with the magnitude of 200 7.1 Richter scale earthquakes as he lands with needle precision. This'll be a feat so incredible they'll forever confuse Jeffrey for a Michael Jordan/Tom Brady-like figure for years to come.
Seeing him dive from all the way up there just to get to you all the way down here, will set you off running to the great, big pool, and just as you're jumping in to greet him....
….WHAT IS MY POINT? Well, it's actually pretty simple: The GREATEST POOL PARTY IN THE SKY, the one every one of us is destined to jam at, is NOT the kind of party to show up to without knowing how to get your laughter on. ....That's all I'm sayin'.