Hey Joe—

What’s it like out there floating around all free and easy? Or is that just a fantasy promulgated to make ourselves feel better about leaving this plane and venturing into the mystery? Have you seen the ones that have gone before? Is that true? Have you seen mom and dad, maybe our grandpas and grandmothers from both sides? Friends that may have gone before? Are they there? Do you talk like we do, like you did? Or is communication insinuated, not needed? Are you a part of the Universal flow now? Out of pain? Into the ethers? Did your entire life pass by you when you finally went? Did all the bad things you ever did flood at you and were you forgiven? Did all the good, loving things you ever did flow back to you and wash you in love?

I can tell you that since you’ve been gone brother I have focused in on the love I had, and continue to have, for you. In your absence I am honing in on how powerful your human presence actually was. Perhaps that is the irony of this human existence— that we are so distracted by what we think we need, or how we believe we are supposed to live, that the most important things float out of our lives waiting for us on the other side, when it’s “too late”— when the physicality— the ability to sense and feel like only humans can is gone, boom, in a flash.

In searching for pictures of you and piecing together a photographic template of your life to share with others who love you, I affirmed the love I felt for you and still feel, is honest. It isn’t a thing I made up. It was and remains real. This is big because sometimes I think I fake too many feelings. I blessedly realize this while I still have the ability to write it down, record it. But when I’m gone and, best-case looking back with clarity, I hope that someone I have loved and been loved by finds inspiration from my moving on and will maybe try to understand, more fully the meaning of her own life. That will mean so much.
And Joe, perhaps you will be there waiting when I escape and watch me swirl gracefully through the heavens, finally unencumbered. We can do the heavenly equivalent of playing golf or jumping in the lake,. You can have a Miller Lite and I’ll have a glass of Pinot Noir and we can light up a joint, contemplate the meaning of things and say to each other, “How are you doing?” and we can both reply, “Fucking fabulous!”

I hope that’s the way it is.

I hope from now on, in this skin, I will be more aware of those I truly love and those who love me, and express to them in the moment, how wonderful they are and that when I am with them I feel the most important feeling one can feel— loved. That when they are worried about things such as the aging face or a feeling of perceived inadequacy that they needn’t worry about that— because they inspire love in me and many others. Or maybe not many others, but just one or two people. That it doesn’t matter who you feel loved by or how you love others— as long as you do so. The icing on this human cake is that we express it. It then fills the voids and calms the chaos. It lifts the fallen, lovingly placing them onto a smooth and easy circuitous road, one where they don’t see what’s next but they know it’s good.

In time, I know your now powerful presence will fade into the background as the patterns of my human life grab me once again and make me doubt I am worthy of all that is within reach, and I will drown myself in the human drama that only serves to distract all of us here from the essence of who we are and what we are here for. I hope not but if it does that’s okay, because there will be days in the future these sentiments will again flow to the forefront of my mind and I will remember. I will remember the way you greeted me— “Triiiishaaaa!” extending my name the way you did, making me feel special. I fantasize now that maybe you did that because you wanted to feel our initial connection just a little bit longer. After your hello we may have shared profound feelings about our lives or maybe you would pivot into your financial mumbo jumbo and I would listen, smiling, and inside silently self-professing that I have no fucking idea what he is talking about, but not really caring because we were together and we were sharing what we knew to be our true selves, without apprehension or editing. Beers were popped, joints were smoked and the music rang out and life in those moments was filled with possibilities.

When I see you on the flip side of my physical life (I will go on believing that will happen because if not it’s a heartbreak!) please remind me of who you knew me to be in this lifetime as I am reminding myself of who you really were to me. I thought I knew when you were here, but now that you’re gone I realize I didn’t know. I didn’t really understand then, what I feel acutely in this moment. That you sitting in proximity, with your Ralph Lauren older brother face, and me laughing at my own luck to be able to spend time with you— these were gifts that often went unopened. No more, the paper is torn off and the jewel of who you were in this lifetime sparkles with unending radiance and all I can say now is “Thank you Joe.” In this moment I feel fucking fabulous.

Tricia Schwaba, 4/4/2023