both in their forties and passed away without warning. The
deaths came as a shock to everyone. As Jody watched three
grieving families, she thought of the comfort Larry’s words
had provided his family. She hurt for the children, those
“who knew unquestionably of their parents’ love, but
desperately missed the reassurance and security that their
physical presence provided.” She couldn’t stop thinking of
the letter he wrote and the difference it had made.
Jody started sharing Larry’s story with others. “Don’t
you think this is something we should all do for the people
we love?” she would say, trying to drum up interest. And
many would respond, “Yes, but I’m not a writer,” or, “Yes,
but I have no idea where to begin.”
“One way of knowing our gifting,” Jody told me, “is
when something that seems easy to us doesn’t seem easy to
others. I kept thinking, How hard could it be? Maybe I
could help people do this . . . What seemed so hard for so
many people seemed easy to me.”^2
She eventually relented to that prompting.
Jody established Leave Nothing Unsaid, a program and
book that helps people of all ages write letters to their loved
ones. After Larry’s death, she had been inspired, but the
idea didn’t become reality until she decided to act. She kept
thinking someone should do something. Finally she realized
that someone was her.
At fifty-eight years old, Jody Noland is beginning to
understand how her life has been converging for decades on
this very moment. She is doing what she was born to do,