Dear WordPress readers,

I’m sending this post both to you and to the many folks that I’ve e-mailed for a long time about Jody.

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Dear ones,

Yesterday I had a bunch of errands to run – meet with the funeral director, get Jody’s rings cleaned, arrange for a plaked 24×36 version of the beautiful obituary photo, and go to the restaurant to discuss menu and room arrangements.  It seems that I needed a little spurt of busyness.

I started driving towards London and began crying.  I’m doing that a lot when I’m alone.  Somewhere on the highway, Jody talked to me, words that were astonishing:

It’s not just the big beautiful tree on Bostwick
I am all trees, Bruce
I welcome you everywhere

And I cried some more.  Trees passed me on the left and on the right.  Big ones.  Small ones.  A few with leaves, others with needles, and many with bare branches.  My darling wife was there with me all the way, everywhere I turned.

Words now fail me.  It is Jody … bowing to me, kissing me, clapping for me, and smiling.  I am so blessed.  I love you, my dear.  And as our nephew Jagger would say, “until the end of space”.

Last night, when I went to bed, I continued a tradition that is many years old:

Goodnight, Jodiette
Sweet dreams
I love you

And quietly I knew that these words would flow from me to Jody, in the dark of evening, for the rest of my life.  Just so.

I hope that you will allow me to express love for my dearest for a little while yet.  Gosh, this is two days in a row.  And I’ve let that be okay.  I’ll write some more after Jody’s funeral, and then after her Celebration of Life in January.  I’ll know when it’s time to bring our e-mail saga to a close.  I just checked back.  My first e-mail to you was on November 23, 2013.  A year of love.  And actually, infinitely more than that.

Since Sunday, you’ve written about 275 e-mails to Jody and me.  Thank you.  I would like to answer them all.  It would be good for me, and I hope good for you.  It may take me awhile, though!

I’m going to turn all of my messages into a book.  It will be called Jodiette: My Lovely Wife.  I’ll get going on it in February, I expect, working with the self-publishing aids available through the Blurb website.  I don’t want to sell this book.  My inner something-or-other tells me that’s not right.  I’ll be giving it away to anyone who’d like a copy.  May the experiences that Jody and I have shared be a gift to many folks out there in the universe.

Thank you for listening