Recommended: While you read, listen and watch “Days Between” 4-1-93, Nassau Coliseum. Incredible photo montage of Jerry/more

With a collective sigh, we step into the twenty-seventh “Days Between,” which encompasses the nine-days from Garcia’s birthday to the day of his passing (August 1-9). This year unbelievably marks the 28th anniversary of his death.

Jerry would have been 81 years old this August. How’s that for a ‘steal your face’ moment?

In 1995, when Jerry died at age 53, I was a 34-year-old single parent living in the Hudson Valley, with a toddler who is now 30 years old herself (a stunning revelation). I’ve lived through 9/11, moved across the country; remarried; lost a parent, multiple pets, and many dear friends along the way. 2015 brought Fare Thee’ Well, and Summer 2023 brought “The Final Tour” to Dead and Company. While I don’t think for a minute that the band is finished, it remains to be seen what form they will morph into. The one constant throughout the journey, and truly Jerry’s legacy, is the community who understands that the MUSIC PLAYS THE BAND.

Indeed, the Days Between have become a place marker of sorts; almost a journal about how our lives have changed, year by year, since August 9, 1995.

I originally wrote about The Days Between in August 2018, adding to it in 2019 and 2020, (see both below), simply reflecting on the impact of losing Garcia, never guessing that just seven months later, we would experience global disruption in the form of a horrific pandemic, economic instability, domestic racial crisis, and dramatic natural disasters involved with climate change that felt like we had indeed entered End Times. Throughout the pandemic, the isolation from our musical family-by-choice magnified the feelings of loss, as we struggled to maintain hope that we’d be celebrating live musical events with our community once again.

Here is a snippet from August 2020.

Even the most optimistic and resilient among us have had to go deep to find hope, as the gray fog of the pandemic settles over our collective lives. Perhaps it is helpful to visualize the ‘Days Between’ as bubbles of loss and love, in equal measure, rising to the surface, reminding us that the bittersweet departure of Jerry also brings deep recognition of the indisputable magic of the Grateful Dead and of the musical soundtrack to our lives.

August 2019:

I haven’t been myself this week. I may be reading too much into it, but I’ve been distracted, emotional, and can’t sleep. Like all of you, I have real life troubles and distractions, but I can usually shrug it off or place it gently on a shelf when need be. This week, though, it just isn’t happening.
I realize, with a start, that we’re in The Days Between. It would never occur to me to talk about this with anyone who hasn’t had a lifetime of love for Jerry Garcia, and frankly, I’m almost too embarrassed to bring it up at all, because I know how it sounds. But there it is.
These are the bittersweet days that seem to hang like a pregnant pause between Jerry’s birthday on August 1, and the day that he passed, just eight days later, on August 9, at age 53 while in a small rehab facility in Northern California.
It’s still difficult and painful to say Jerry and death in the same breath. As someone who has been working for a decade in the beautiful and admittedly weird world of hospice, I’m well familiar with mortality on a daily basis, but Jerry’s death feels like the loss of a dearly beloved friend or relative. In fact, one of Jerry’s many nicknames was Uncle Jer for a reason—this was part of his gift: he made us feel that he was speaking directly to us through his musical language.
The adage "time heals all wounds” is only partially true; the loss, while not quite as raw as it once was, continues to be huge. Hell, I’m still in denial half the time. We can feel the gossamer strings that knit our community together with love every time we connect with a friend that we wouldn’t have known without Jerry and the Dead. There hasn’t been a show I’ve attended where I haven’t felt the presence of Jerry Garcia on that stage, playing along with the band. And I know that the band feels him too.

In 2018, on August 9:

Woke extra early today, as an unusually fiery sunrise cast a surreal glow to the room. Almost instantly, the realization that it was another August 9th, the 23rd year since the passing of Jerry Garcia, and a day of bittersweet remembrance for a human who shared far too much of his heart, soul, and body to those of us who always asked for more.

There are no adequate words that I can pen that would do justice to the impact that this man has made on my life. To say that I am who I am in large part because of him would be an understatement, although this would seem ridiculous, if you weren't also a Deadhead. If you were, then you wouldn't blink an eye, and you’d be nodding in agreement).

Since 1978, I've been on a journey of discovery, with eyes wide open, not wanting to miss any of it, jumping on a psychedelic wagon of joy and holding on for dear life, and its been an amazing ride to this day. Through it all, the soundtrack to my life has been the symphony of the Grateful Dead, in all its patchwork colors and magical molecular madness. My closest friends are largely comprised of the beautiful, weird and talented clan who also choose to journey down the path that Jerry and the band of merry pranksters forged many years ago.