Enjoy part two of Buddy’s story!

Me: Can you tell me a little about where you are in the afterlife? What do you do there? What are your surroundings?

Buddy: I’m with my family. I’m with other friends. Even though I have a personal liking to the music and the power it holds, there are greater things in life to be more aware of, and that’s the structure and the safety of our planet earth.

Me: Well, earth is our stage to play music while we’re in the human body, so we have to take care of that stage.

Buddy: Yes ma’am, we do.

Me: Do you have a life’s work over there?

Buddy: I don’t personally hold a specific title, but my life’s work is the awareness and the acceptance of the changes that earth is going through now.

Me: What insights did you gain given your new perspective in the afterlife?

Buddy: I quickly gained the knowledge of how ego-driven I was! I wasn’t aware of the terminology of it or why I even needed to be aware of that. I was aware that the power of the media and the power of the people’s focus can either tear a man apart or build him up.

Me: What were you here to learn and to teach?

Buddy: I was definitely there to learn how to love, to love myself. I was quite the awkward boy. But finding the love in my wife, that was an amazing feat for me.

Me: What were you here to teach?

Buddy: I think it runs along similar lines of an answer inspired by John Lennon: Teaching people how to feel, how to be loose and enjoy the release that music can provide. In every old culture, there are many purposes for the strength of music. I was just happy to be a part of it.

Me: Good. We’re happy you were a part of it too, Buddy. (pause) Do you have any regrets?

Jamie listens to Buddy, then starts to laugh.

Jamie: He has a more serious answer, then he got a little silly. It’s cute.

Buddy: I do regret that I didn’t get to produce more music.

Me: Okay.

Buddy: And I regret not being alive during Lasik surgery so I could get rid of my glasses.

Me (laughing): Oh my god, that’s so funny!

Buddy: Everybody loved them, but I wasn’t a fan of them.

Me: Aw. But it makes you, you! I don’t think I would recognize you without those glasses, Buddy!

Jamie: Well, he has them on now!

Me: There we go!

(Pause)

Me: What past life most affected your last life.

Jamie: God, he knows it right away. He doesn’t even pause.

Me: Wow!

Buddy: I have a memory. It was the moment I knew I loved music, and I knew I wanted to have music in my life. I had the opportunity to be an African boy. I was maybe three or four years old, standing at the edge of our hut. We had grass huts. And we had these carved wooden troughs underneath to catch some of the water that would trickle down the—it looked like a woven grass, then underneath that weave, we had really big leaves so the rain could get through the grass, but not the big leaves. So it would run off, kind of like a gutter system. And the rain would hit these wooden bowls or troughs. Since they were all hand-carved, they all sounded different.

Me: Oh!

Buddy: Yeah, different depths, different thicknesses, and when the water would land, it would make sounds.

Me: How interesting!

Buddy: So, when it rained, it made the most beautiful, intriguing notes and sounds that I couldn’t replicate in any other way. 

Me: Maybe that was your connection to the spirit of Mother Earth, too.

Buddy: Yes.

Me: And how music is tied to the earth in many ways.

Buddy: Yes. In many ways, the sounds that she makes—when the wind blows, how it moves the grass on the top of the huts, it makes that maraca sound. And there were just so many rhythms in that small place in the wild that just excited me so. I remember my dad carving me sticks that I could hit on the sides of a tree that would make different notes and sounds and rhythms. I became a very good drummer.

Me: Good!

Buddy: But it was that one sound, that one sound that sticks with me, and that’s the moment I knew I loved music.

Me: What an amazing story. What was your proudest accomplishment while in the physical, and has that changed now that you’re in the spiritual realm?

(Long pause as Jamie listens)

Jamie (tenderly): Aw.

Buddy: My proudest accomplishment was going to be a father, but that never got fulfilled, so I don’t know if I can count that.

Me: Of course you can count that; you’re still his father.

Buddy: But of course it did change when I passed over, because I never had the physical memories or status of following through and becoming a father in that lifetime.

Me: So now, looking back, what is your proudest accomplishment?

(Jamie listens, then laughs)

Buddy: All my apologies to my wife, but it has to be when one of my songs played, and it was the number one song. It reached more people and had more listeners that knew me than any other band.

Me: At that time?

Buddy: Yes ma’am.

Jamie: Peggy Sue! That’s what he’s saying the song was.

Me: Oh, no wonder he apologized to his wife.

Jamie sings the song in the background.

Jamie: I could hear him humming it, and I said, ‘I know this!’

Me: I love that song. Now, Buddy, from your newfound perspective in the afterlife, do you have any messages for humanity? This is your chance to share whatever you’d like with the world.

(Long pause as he ponders)

Buddy: Yes ma’am. I would like to tell the world that life doesn’t need to be as complicated as our media and our marketing likes to feed us. Life is as simple and as beautiful as raindrops in wooden bowls.

Me: Wow. I was thinking the exact thing right before you said it.

Buddy: My wish is that every person living has that one moment In their life where it all comes to the point of calm.

Me: Yes, and that’s found in simplicity, isn’t it? There’s so much joy and calm in simplicity.

Buddy: Yes. Yes.

Me: Okay, Erik. Your turn.

Erik (to Buddy): How did you handle the news of your death when you watched it play out on earth? What was your reaction to that separatism?

Buddy: It was extremely difficult to handle it personally, and the fact that I didn’t handle it personally is what got me through it. God truly embraced me and pulled me away from myself of thinking about personal demise and sadness and sorrow. Without that strength supporting me, I truly believe I would have died again if it were possible.

Me: Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much for your time, Buddy. I love your music, and I really appreciate the wisdom you’ve shared with us. It was an honor. I hope we can do you justice in this book.

Buddy: Thank you so much, ma’am and have a blessed day.

Me: You too.

Jamie: He’s shaking Erik’s hand.

Me: Such manners.

Jamie: And he leaves.