In Paradise – the gift that took hindsight to see.

In 2021, my husband and I took a camping trip to our favorite National Forest campground — a small lake, quiet woods, the kind of place that always felt like ours. Uno brought his guitar, as he often did, and one afternoon he started noodling while we sat in the woods overlooking the water. I heard a melody forming. He heard the words “when this life I leave, I want you to be, with me in paradise.” It was simple, unhurried, and full of the kind of peace we didn’t always get in the middle of our journey.

At the time, it felt like just another moment in a long line of moments we’d shared over decades — the kind you don’t realize is precious until you look back and see its reflection as you remember. We didn’t finish the song that day, but I did record it, as was our habit, on my iphone. What I didn’t know then was that it would be the last song we wrote together.

A few years later, I found the writing notes and a recording of that afternoon on my phone. Hearing his voice again — hearing the beginnings of what he wanted to say –kinda stopped me short and I wants to finish the song. The lyrics held a message of hope, reunion, and love that reached beyond the life we were living at the time. It felt like he had tucked something away for me to find when I needed it most.

Finishing the song felt like finishing a conversation we started together. A tender reminder of what he wanted me to know. A promise carried in melody.

As we approach our 45th wedding anniversary, I find myself thinking about moments like that — the quiet ones, the unexpected ones, the ones that didn’t announce themselves as important. Love isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a guitar by a lake, a melody you almost miss, a few words scribbled in a notebook, a recording you rediscover years later. And so many memories of hikes, drives, quiet evenings; it is true, you remember the good times.

In Paradise is the echo of that moment — a final gift from him, and a reminder that love doesn’t end. It just changes form.

© Jodi Bloom, September 2026

always find the hope