A very old friend of mine died a couple of years ago.
I had lunch with him last week.
So, overall, he seems to be doing much better.
I’ll call him TM.
TM and I have known each other for more than 40 years. We met in college in Athens, Georgia, back when our biggest health concerns were probably alcohol poisoning, whatever the hell we were eating at 2:00 in the morning, and whether we could find our car the next day.
Apparently, cholesterol was quietly taking notes.
TM was one of those rare people who always had a shit-eating grin on his face.
Not because he had just gotten away with something—although knowing us back then, that was certainly possible.
He smiled because he was genuinely happy to see you.
Every single time.
I could go five years without seeing him.
Ten years.
Didn’t matter.
The next time I saw him, there was the grin.
And we picked up the conversation almost exactly where we had left it years earlier, as if somebody had simply hit pause.
The remarkable thing about TM is that I could probably find 50 people who would tell you exactly the same story.
They’d all say:
“TM was one of the great ones!”
Which, the older I get, may be the greatest compliment you can possibly receive.
We were in college together in Athens when R.E.M. was getting started there. And I’m beginning to wonder if Shiny Happy People was actually written about TM.
Michael Stipe has never confirmed this.
But he hasn’t denied it to me personally either.
So I’m going with it.
Then, a couple of years ago, TM died.
Not figuratively.
Not “we almost lost him.”
Died.
Massive heart attack.
His widowmaker was almost completely blocked, which, incidentally, is one of those medical terms that really doesn’t need a marketing department.
“Widowmaker.”
Pretty fucking clear.
His heart stopped.
And for approximately eight minutes, TM was gone.
Eight minutes is nothing when you’re waiting for an Uber.
Eight minutes is annoying when you’re waiting for your food.
Eight minutes is a goddamn eternity when you’re dead.
But somehow, through extraordinary medical care, CPR, electricity, luck, God, fate—or some combination of all five—they got him back.
The paddles hit.
His heart started.
And apparently TM said, in effect:
“Not today, motherfuckers.”
And back he came.
Which brings me to last week.
I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for him.
And through the door walks TM.
With the same fucking grin.
I don’t mean a similar grin.
The grin.
The one I remembered from Athens.
The one from our twenties.
The one from our thirties.
The one I’d seen after five years apart and ten years apart.
The grin belonging to the guy who had been dead for eight minutes and apparently decided death wasn’t going to fuck up his lunch plans.
We sat down.
And we talked.
Old times.
New times.
Our kids.
Our parents.
Our friends.
The people we’ve lost.
The stupid shit we’ve done.
The stupid shit we somehow survived.
And then we started talking about life.
TM told me that he wakes up happy every morning.
He thanks God for another day.
Because in his mind, every day now is extra time.
Bonus time.
Overtime.
The universe accidentally forgot to cancel his subscription.
And there’s something else about him now.
He doesn’t take much seriously.
Nobody lives rent-free in his head.
Think about that.
How much of our incredibly limited time do we spend pissed off at someone?
Worried about what somebody thinks about us?
Reliving an argument?
Holding a grudge?
Getting angry about politics?
Getting furious because somebody didn’t return a text?
TM was dead for eight minutes.
I’m pretty sure when your heart stops beating, you don’t think:
“Goddammit, I still can’t believe Steve didn’t invite me to that fucking dinner.”
There probably isn’t a grievance department in heaven.
And if there is, I suspect they’re understaffed.
So we finished lunch.
We stood up.
We hugged.
And we promised each other it wouldn’t be another eight years before we got together again.
And then I walked away.
About twelve seconds later, I started crying.
Not a dignified tear rolling gently down my cheek.
Weird fucking tears.
The kind where your body apparently knows something before your brain does.
And suddenly I understood why.
I had just experienced something almost nobody ever gets to experience.
I got to have lunch with a dead friend.
I got to sit across from someone I had already lost.
I got to hear his voice again.
See that stupid grin again.
Laugh with him again.
Hug him again.
And most importantly, I got the opportunity we all desperately wish we had after someone dies:
I got another chance to tell him I love him.
How fucking lucky is that?
Most of us don’t get that lunch.
There isn’t usually an encore.
There isn’t usually another hug.
There isn’t usually a chance to say the thing you suddenly realize you should have said a hundred times when you had the opportunity.
TM got eight minutes of death.
I got another lunch.
And somewhere between those two things is probably a lesson.
Call the friend.
Take the lunch.
Forgive the asshole.
Stop worrying about people who don’t matter.
Tell the people who do matter that you love them.
Wake up happy.
Be grateful for another day.
And for God’s sake, don’t wait until somebody has been dead for eight minutes to figure out how much you love seeing their stupid fucking grin.
Because every single one of us is living on extra time.
TM is just lucky enough to know it.
And maybe now, because of him, I am too.
P.S. TM—let’s not wait eight years for the next lunch.
At your age, and with your cardiac history, that just seems like shitty scheduling.
Directive 17