Temple of the Dog (A Love Letter)

 The first time I heard Say Hello 2 Heaven it came drifting out of a dead man's phone. My Uncle Paul had recently committed suicide; hung himself in his bar lofted apartment. My large Irish catholic family sorrowfully assembled at a bar on a chilly fall evening in upstate New York. I was outside smoking my "who gives a fuck" cigarette standing next to my distraught cousin Taylor who had just lost his father, the second suicide our family had suffered. He was facing away from me leaning against the stucco brick wall outside the bar. The bottom of his father's phone gently held up to his ear as he softly sang along to a recording of Paul and our Uncle Sean playing Say Hello 2 Heaven around a campfire on the beach of Lake Ontario. With Sean on guitar and vocals and Paul on the harmonica for the solo. Taylor couldn't talk to me about what had happened, any mention of Paul would cause him to swiftly walk away pretending he didn't hear me, but that song kept getting played over and over. I must have heard that song sung and played at least 15 times in the few days I was there. I couldn't talk to him, but that song sure could. It was one of the many relics of joy left behind by his father. It painted such a joyful picture: Two brothers on the beach on a warm summer night surrounded by the people they love jamming out to a song that probably spoke to them in the same way it was speaking to Taylor now. Sean's voice dripping with emotion and influence from Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, soulfully playing the guitar, followed by a killer harmonica solo by Paul. As the guitar dissolves to end the song, you hear the clack of phone being lifted from a log in front of them and just one word is uttered by Paul..."Awesome"