Last night we lost Saint Jimmy of the Buffett’s, a tropical bard who embodied chill for a world needing instructions on how to do it, all the while using his business savvy and heart to create a legacy of ongoing chill that will outlive him.

I was introduced to Saint Jimmy early in my life. Some called him a novelty, some a joke, but to me he presented the quintessential ideal of someone enjoying their life’s calling to the fullest. I immediately found a kindred soul: he loved to make people happy and sought out different ways to do it through all the senses.

His love for bar food and boat drinks led to an empire of eateries.

His love for people of all ages led to retirement communities that encourage chill in the third act of life.

His love for human connection was found in a touring schedule that would make artists half his age fatigued in half the time, drawing thousands and thousands of Parrot Heads who saw following him on tour as an honor that bonded vagabonds and misfits and CEOs and school teachers together, all needing a break for a few hours, everyone letting their hair down (even if you didn’t have any).

His love for the written word led to books upon books, both for adults and children, to be published, all highlighting the sand and the surf and the hoisted sail.

And his love for music? Well, Saint Jimmy was not an amazing composer, but he was a prolific one. And he knew something that so few people do: how to tell a good, complete story in song.

In “The Captain and the Kid” we learned about his grandfather’s struggle to retire from sea life. In “Son of A Son of A Sailor” we learned about his life’s ambition to be on the waves forever like his grandfather, and in “A Pirate Looks at 40” we heard him struggle with the fact that he’ll never live that kind of life because, by chance, he was born “200 years too late…an over 40 victim of fate.” Even in his little-known tune “Mailbox Money” we got a glimpse of his life, hearing how his residuals just appeared in his mailbox in the morning and even how, when in his island life the postal service was spotty, he’d take up the helm delivering the mail by boat to his neighbors.

Though I find toe-tapping fun in his hits “Fins” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” I’ve always been drawn to his sentimental tunes offerings like “Barefoot Children in the Rain,” and “Take Another Road.”

After Hurricane Katrina wiped out large swaths of New Orleans and lower Mississippi, he wrote a song to ease their hearts, donating the proceeds of the album to their recovery. In the song he sang,

“I bought a cheap watch from a crazy man,
Floating down Canal.
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands,
It always just says ‘now.’
Now you may be thinking that I was had,
But this watch is never wrong.
And if I have trouble the warranty says,
‘Breathe in, breathe out, move on.’”

I cannot tell you, Beloved, how many times those lyrics have saved my life.

Saint Jimmy sought the good life and accidentally stumbled upon a meaningful one. Saint Jimmy sought the ocean, but instead brought happiness to oceans of humanity through community-building tunes.

Saint Jimmy found his way into the ears and hearts of so many who just needed a license to chill, and he wrote the order for them to do so without hesitation. I had the joy of hearing him for the first time just a few years ago, even as I own just about every one of his albums on vinyl.

He was a serious businessman who peddled in amusement as his currency, and we were grateful to join in that commercial exchange, finding privilege on both sides of that transaction.

It is fitting that he died on the cusp of Autumn, having led a Summer existence.

And, at least for me, I find it fitting that I read of his death this morning looking at the waves of the Atlantic, his home he introduced me to and invited me to see as my own.

Sail on, Jimmy.

Here’s the view from my balcony, and I have to imagine that this morning, well, yours is the same one.