Writer finishes his masterpiece, a love story

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BY COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star

Jeff Dodd wrote many things.

He wrote love letters, more than 50. His wife keeps them in an airtight box.

He wrote poetry. He proposed to her years ago during a picnic date at Holmes Lake, then recited Shakespeare’s 18th Sonnet, comparing her to a summer’s day. But better.

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Jeff and Kelly Dodd and their four kids -- daughters Aubrey, 13, and Regan, 8, and sons Jack, 6, and baby Finn -- went on a Caribbean cruise in June. It was their last family vacation together. (Courtesy)

… summer’s lease hath all too short a date …

He wrote to Kelly Archuletta while she studied at UNL. He wrote to her while majoring in English at Notre Dame, and from a college in Ireland where he studied, too.

He wrote about roommates and classes and drinking Irish tea. He’d become a big tea snob, Kelly says.

She was from Ogallala. He was from Lincoln, a Pius grad. They’d met at a summer leadership conference and married while in college.

She laughs.

“The clouds broke apart. The angels sang.”

She became a divorce lawyer. A kid of divorce, she used to say that every marriage ends sadly — in divorce or death.

They bought a home on a cul-de-sac near Milwaukee. He became Mr. Mom.

He wrote grocery lists.

He wrote freelance stories, sitting at his old oak desk. He often held baby Finn as he wrote at that desk.

He wrote a screenplay and planned to write a novel.

He wrote news for his Notre Dame alumni club’s Web site.

He wrote Christmas cards.

Just after Christmas, in January 2007, doctors told him the skin cancer he’d had in his youth, maybe from the summer suns that blistered his fair skin, had returned. It had spread to the liver and kidney.

He started a blog.

Jeff’s Daily Update.

He wrote about doctor visits, chemo, hope. He wrote about 8-year-old Regan’s First Communion and Finn’s first steps.

He wrote about the day 13-year-old Aubrey made the cheer squad and the day he took the training wheels off 6-year-old Jack’s bike.

He wrote about it spreading to his brain.

He wrote many questions.

Who would walk his daughters down the aisle? Who would take his sons to their first Notre Dame game?

(He wrote about his Huskers, too.)

Why him?

What the @%#&, God?

He wrote how grateful he was the brain tumor only affected his left leg, not his writing arm.

He compared a trip to Chicago with Kelly for a doctor’s visit to a big date …

… Granted it’s the kind of date when you take the girl on a picnic even though thunderheads are rolling in and the forecast calls for hail. But, hey, a date’s a date, and I’ll go on one with Kelly every chance I can get…

He wrote about the day he told a friend he’d “kick cancer’s butt.”

The friend looked at him sympathetically, as if Jeff couldn’t face reality, and that fouled his morning. But then he realized the friend hadn’t understood what he meant. He didn’t mean he thought he’d be cured, he wrote. He meant he was going to go down fighting.

… Think Rocky Balboa losing to Apollo Creed in the original — and best — of the Rocky series. …

He wrote a Last Will and Testament.

He gave Aubrey his books. He gave Jack his clocks and pocket knives. He gave Regan the silver Irish teapot he used every day. He gave baby Finn that oak writing desk.

He chose the words for his headstone, the final two lines Shakespeare’s 18th Sonnet.

… So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

“Reading it now,” Kelly says, “I think it’s about the poet’s own immortality through poetry, and how his words will live on after his death.”

He had no final words for Kelly, who held his hand that final night. He was drugged up, in pain. His eyes were shut.

I’m going to kiss you, she told him.

He puckered his lips, so she knows he heard.

Jeff Dodd’s funeral was Tuesday in Wisconsin. He was 36.

My Final Blog.

Hi! The fact that you’re reading this means I have died …

He asked Kelly to post it after his death.

He quotes a Will Ferrell movie he and Kelly rented one time, “Stranger Than Fiction,” about a character in a novel (him) who’s aware he’s being killed off by the author (God) and begs for a different ending.

By the end, the hero still doesn’t understand why. But he’s come to accept that he must die for the book to become a masterpiece.

… So this is my story …

Then he thanks you for being part of it.

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.