He's Gone

All that's left to do is smile, smile, smile.... Heard the news late last night that my old buddy Matthew Thomas Moore passed away on New Year's Eve, under the bright light of the blue moon, that last full moon of the first decade of the 21st Century. I queued the song in my mind, He's Gone, from Europe 72, that seminal Grateful Dead album of the same year-- the year I heard the Grateful Dead live for the first time, and 5 years before I met the old Hip-eye, as he was affectionately known. The lyrics of that song ring true:

Going where the wind don't blow so strange
Maybe on some high cold mountain range
Lost one round but the price wasn't anything
Knife in a back and more of the same
Same old rat in a drain ditch
Out on a limb
You know better but I know him

Now he's gone
Lord he's gone
Like a steam locomotive rolling down the track
He's gone
He's gone
and nothin's gonna bring him back
He's gone....

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/gone.html

The same song I sang when my father died, when my dogs Don Diego and Leon died, or when my brother Scott died-- when they all die-- tragic early deaths of lives cut short, or lives lived fully until old age or disease robs them from us. Death always puts our own fragile lives in crystal clear perspective. Life is the most precious thing but often death is a blessing. Matthew was a unique man, the deepest most booming voice who could be heard above the sound of a jet airplane taking off. A larger than life character who was there for the journey, not where it was suppose to take him. It brings back many memories of our time together when we were in our twenties, the most formative time of one's life. Our live's have taken very different trajectories, and his lead him to his untimely death. 56 years old is way too young do die. We were the same age, yet I feel like I am in my prime and my biggest and most important work is still ahead of me. I do not believe that Matthew felt like he had "his work" no Dharma to guide him, he just was. He lived for the moment and the moment has passed. Rest in peace my old friend. You have gone where the winds don't blow so strange.

Matthew Thomas Moore, 11/12/1953-12/31-2009.