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Pictures:

1. Judy Jones, 1956 "After the Leaves"

2. Abandoned Leaves, 1957

3. Uuuuhm, Uuuuuhm Good...Judy Jones gaining 3 pounds

4. Garnering the Attention I Deserve

5. Judy's "Daddy's Girl" tootsie toes

6. Paul and Judy hangin' on the deck

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Today the sun broke through after 3 days of nearly continual rain. Wow! The sky is so clear and lovely. Not too hot. I am just enjoying every moment of the beauty around me here on the Lake.


Jeff went out and did one of his usual wild routines. While we were collecting my various medications he trotted over to the cosmetic section and pow-wowed with the lady there returning with these eight psychedelic toenail polishes. He proclaimed that when he was through with me I'd be a "tart to surpass all tarts". Later I enjoyed his goofy attempts to apply these garish globs of goo to my toes. Janet aka Queen Janita mercifully took over before the color treacle crept up over my ankles. She then deftly applied a coat of "Daddy's Girl" now shining in purple passion on my tootsies. I feel very wicked now as I prowl around my pad.


Good times!


Paul returned from a trip down to our home in Louisiana. I was delighted to see him return...old Paul Edmund is turning into a complete added-value kinda guy! He just chats away and is continually kind and helpful. Even better is that Jeff has been giving him pointers on sleep habits and adjusting his medications a bit. Wow! the difference even right out of the gate is just amazing. I am getting back the energetic fellow I knew from years ago. I hope Paul keeps this up...who knows what sort of Superman he will be before I fade away. Not a bad gift to enjoy in my Twilight.


Speaking of twilight...Jeff told me he got the details of my cervical biopsy. They confirm what he had told me was a most likely; the source of the cancer cannot be determined. My therapy will be as foretold ie 3 weeks of a standard chemo to begin very shortly here in Hot Springs followed by another CAT scan to see if my cancer was slowed by the treatment or not. My prognosis remains just as I told you in an earlier note. One year at the very outside.


I remain calm and I am enjoying each day thoroughly. I realize that is going to change very quickly indeed but I will try to deal with that in whatever way I can when those days come as they have to so many before me. Then it will be over.


I will be sending you a full report from the Other Side. I suspect you will not be able to read it.


One poignant pleasure is that a few folks have actually caught me in the house to speak with me on the phone. Usually I am out near the Lake with Paul or by myself, reading in a quiet hidden corner or gadding about with the children running errands or being fed/massaged or just generally adored by them.

These conversations remind me of how much I hold in regard so many of you and each in such special, unique ways. Most folks spend some time during our chats telling me they will miss me and how very special I am. Believe me, it is great to have verified my own very high opinion of myself! Keep it comin'! But, mostly I find myself savoring the flavor and wonder of my caller, the whole beauty of each of you. Really, believe me, you just have to get around to this "passing on" stuff to finally get the true payoff for it all. From what I can tell thus far you should not be at all alarmed by death. Quite the contrary.

Another pleasure is strolling a bit more frequently down memory lane. Tonight my chosen topic for reflection was “Judy, Toiler”. One chapter in the text of my life of toil is that entitled “Leaves”. I turned to my beloved husband of 55 years, Paul Edmund, and said, “tell the children about the leaves!” Paul glanced up from his paper and said, “1956”. Yes, it was in 1956 that he caught me ‘neath the autumn sky racing about in a cloud of leaves singing, “this is fun, this is fun, raking leaves is jolly fun” never to touch a rake again. And why should I? Leaves and I had had a good thing going that afternoon in ‘56 but it was time to move on so I did and that was that.

Memory and personal affirmation had a perfect melding today for me when my dear friend, Steve Feske wrote to me and said that he recalled I was a both sane and capable of listening (even to children and adolescents!). Fortunately Steve has not spent alot of time with me in recent years. Anyway, I don't recall anything like this myself in those years of yore but I shall take credit even where it is not due. Besides, to even imagine a mother in the presence of a herd of children or adolescents capable both of listening and sanity just blows my mind. Could that really have been me? Perhaps another chapter? "She Listens. Is She Sane?"

Many of you believe me to be a person who is without a religious or spiritual bone in my body and stay awake nights worrying about the certain flood of anxiety that will assail me as I truly experience my own extinction. I think not. Jeff spent the other night talking to me about various experiences he has had with those near death and then articulated a wonderful, poetic view of how reality is put together and our place in that web that nearly exactly matches my own sense of things. I just could not put it into words. There really is nothing to fear at all. At the deepest level of all we exist perfectly and completely. I am convinced of this and have been for many years.


That topic of incessant interest taken care of I will announce that Jeff's cooking has been so good, Janet's warm and humorous conversations so satisfying, Paul's graciousness and kindness such a blessing that I have gained two going on three pounds in four days. Don't misunderstand...the juggernaut of my cancers' onward course is not altered in the least by the addition of a bit of ballast. But you know when I tell you this that not all is bad in my life.


Anything but.

Judy (via Jeff)