The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do

whatever time they had left.
The cancer killed Mike quickly. Within three months of
the diagnosis, he was gone, never having started a single
letter. After the funeral, his daughter Nancy asked Jody if he
had written any letters like the ones her stepmom had helped
others write. Jody was devastated. She felt like a failure. In
spite of her encouragement and occasional nagging, none of
it had worked. She knew the power of letter writing, the
impact a few words of encouragement could make. But
there were no letters for Nancy, no words of affirmation
from her now deceased father, and there never would be.
After Mike’s death, Jody wondered whether or not she
should continue the letter-writing workshops.
“My immediate conclusion was that I should abandon
this dream,” she recalled in her book. “How could I advise
others to do this when I had failed so miserably in my own
home?” She doubted if this was something she was called
to, after all. “I really thought I had misunderstood.”
Jody gave away the workbooks she had made, keeping
only one as a keepsake, and she let the grieving begin.
A year later, a man called her, looking for a copy of the
workbooks she used to have. His wife’s best friend was
dying of breast cancer and wanted to write a letter to her two
daughters. She was desperate but didn’t know where to
begin or what to say. Jody explained she wasn’t doing the
workshops anymore but sent the woman her one remaining
workbook. “Her death was so imminent,” she wrote, “that a
courier was sent to pick up the workbook.”