3 years ago today we lost Jimmy Buffett (long)

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I always call JB "my main man" and name him as my favorite musician. In all honesty he wasn't even a great musician (as he freely admitted) but he certainly was a wonderful entertainer and businessman. His birthday is on Christmas so for at least a decade I've posted "Happy birthday Jimmy Buffett!" instead of Merry Christmas. I'm snarky like that. I don't even remember how I discovered his music because it wasn't a thing in our house growing up. Maybe it was through an old boyfriend. But his whole vibe of chilling on the beach with a cocktail was right up my alley for this Jersey Shore girl. Over the years my whole family got into going to his concerts. I mean you haven't lived until you've seen your 50+ years old mother at a show wearing a coconut bikini top and lei (while yelling "I just got lei'ed!") I think I saw him something like 15 times or so. Eventually we stopped going to the shows b/c if you saw one you'd pretty much seen them all and we could listen to it on Radio Margaritaville live for free. Okay so that was a random tangent. It was clear for at least a year before his death that Jimmy wasn't well. He cancelled shows and that just wasn't his work ethic. He was famous for doing shows Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. (I think--I may have the days wrong) I remember saying to my dad one day "like how can he stand to sing Margaritaville yet again?" My dad's response was "the money!" JB was private about his health issue--Merckel cell cancer which is a form of skin cancer. Not really surprising for someone who spent so much time out in the sun. It didn't come out until after he was gone. Still the Parrotheads knew that something was up. I remember waking up September 1, 2023 to the news that Jimmy was gone. It was a Friday morning if memory serves me properly. I was shocked but also not shocked. My cousin and I lamented that we hadn't seen a recent show of his and that we always thought there would be another opportunity. I guess that is a life lesson. Ironically I thought that day was going to be the low point of the weekend. I was wrong. I've written about it before and I will again and I won't apologize for it. Some of you know the story already. One of my favorite songs by Jimmy is "I'm Growing Older But Not Up". That seems to be the general theme in my family. Aside from the title my favorite line is "I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0UbIye4RcU