Rod,

As the bandmaster around here I guess the privilege of having the last word falls to me.

I had a million things I wanted to say about you - and to you. Then I read your choice for "A Thought for Today" and realised what it was I really wanted to say.

Love you, my friend!

OK, that's me done for the week. My beloved has just stuck her head around the door and advised (somewhat tersely, I felt, considering for the last week she's had early morning coffee served her in bed) that if it's my intention to wear clothes tomorrow I'd better make a dent in the ironing that's piled up over the past few days. Tough household, this.

My sincere thanks to all who contributed to the Flight Plan this week and for helping to make it a touching tribute to a man so dear to all of us. Special thanks to Petula for her contribution and to Bonnie and Joe Shields for facilitating her participation.

Love and best wishes for the New Year and may all your dreams come true.

Rod will be back tomorrow to close out the millennium so be sure to join him then.

What happened between New York and London ? Did you go off to meet The Wizard again and this time, was it harder letting go, or did he make some magic for you that negated everything we started working for, reaching for? I never expected the Wiz to be out the window from the start of our togetherness but why fly all the way to London to tell me and show me my inadequacies ?

I said we'd never say goodbye, today the word comes easy and without effort. Maybe that's because I don't have to say it face to face. We're at either ends of telephone lines again. Correction. We're there when I call. There is no reason to believe you'll call tonight after not keeping last night's promise. If you did, I don't know what we'd talk about. I only know the conversation, however hard or easy, would end with one final goodbye. The word used with relief by you - regret by me. But final.

I love you still. As much, and as love goes, even more than that first half drunk night you concentrated so hard on pleasing me and did.

I love you. I'm not afraid to say it even after all the mean and misery that's passed between us.

Apologies are not enough I know. How could they compensate for rides across the ocean done in tears and not in laughter? How could they make up for Saturday soldiers battling one the other, wounding words spit out machine gun like. How could they make up for two people desperately in need of one the other not making up? But I apologize. For leading you to London and not letting you love me in your own way. At arms length. For rushing you not stopping once to read your needs, thinking I'd fulfilled them each time you filled mine. For intimidation - if that's what it was - for being timid and unsure, pretending I was strong when my strength only came from you. For making you think every night in bed was one more potential crisis. It never was. It never was anything but the very best. Even when I knew you forced yourself to bring yourself to me. I never felt anything but happiness and honor, joy in letting go. No one else has yet come close to giving me that feeling.

Goodbye. I love you and I'll go on loving. I will change as you will change. I wish you Christmas every time your eyes close. I pray that you will run with deer and soar with eagles, touching only on the ground long enough to find that man who will love you every bit as much as I do and one you'll feel the same toward.