My Friend, Jody

by Bryan on 2/8/2025 at 11:38 AM in Family & Friends

Last night, my friend, Jody, passed away. If you didn't know Jody, you missed out, so let me share with you a little bit about him.

Jody and I met while we were both students at the University of Texas at Austin. He was a sophomore, I was a freshman. We lived in the same dorm, and became fast friends, sharing a love of the mountains, country music, and the Texas Longhorns.

Jody was the kindest, gentlest, sweetest person. He was a bright light shining through darkness; a waypoint calling out to anyone in need of shelter, or even just a few minutes of laughter. He could brighten your day with his smile, a joke, or a changed lyric to a song—you couldn't help but to feel better in his presence.

Sure, we had our differences: he loved Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers, whereas I, a fan of the Dallas Mavericks, hated the Lakers with the white hot intensisty of a thousand suns. In fact, on the way home from a week long camping trip in Colorado, we found ourselves stopped in the Texas panhandle, watching the 1991 NBA Finals, which featured Jody's Lakers against some guy who was never going to get his team over the championship hump. You can be sure we were at odds that night, as I cheered rather loudly for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls won and Jody might not have talked to me the rest of the night.

There were plenty of moments that would cement our friendship forever. For instance: later in that same summer, I talked my parents into allowing me to host a weekend-long Independence Day party and invite several friends from college, including Jody. Unknown to Jody, we had a little secret up our sleeve: we were also celebrating his birthday, complete with homemade cake, made by my mom. You can be sure that Jody and his mom got me back at the end of that summer, while a bunch of us where at his family home, with a surprise birthday celebration and cake for me.

Through the years, we didn't see each other as much, but we always stayed in touch, and would make time to get together whenever one of us was in the same town as the other. He visited me in Colorado, and later in Fort Worth. I visited him in San Antonio. We would run into each other at Longhorn football games, often unplanned.

On one of his business trips to Dallas/Fort Worth, we got together for a dinner of steak and margaritas. I proceeded to tell him all about this amazing woman at work, who was coming over the following evening so that we could go for a run. That amazing woman and I have now been married for over seventeen years, and Jody stood with us, as a groomsman, while we exchanged our vows.

There was the time, in late 2005, when Jody invited me to travel across the country with him, to Pasadena, California, to attend the National Championship game between USC and Texas, at the Rose Bowl. I was broke at the time and embarrassed by that, so I turned him down. The Texas Longhorns won, in what many consider to be one of the all-time greatest games in college football history. I regretted not going with him at the time, mostly because of the game, but I regret it even more today, because Jody's gone and I will never have another chance at that trip.

In January 2010, the Texas Longhorns found themselves playing in the Rose Bowl once again for the National Championship. I wasn't broke anymore, so when ticket prices for the game started to drop precipitously the day before the game, my brother-in-law and I snapped up two tickets and started driving through the night to California. Our extremely loving wives, concerned for our safety during what would be a 20+ hour drive straight through, found tickets for us to fly from El Paso to Orange County, California. There was only one problem with this: how would we get to the game? Jody to the rescue! He was already in California for the game and graciously agreed to not only come pick us up from the airport and take us to the game, but to also take us back to the airport afterward.

There are a lot of stories that I can't share, especially now that Jody isn't here, so I think I will wrap this up.

Jody, I'm going to miss you. The world is going to miss you. I love you, brother. Rest in peace.