The last two words Wendy Moore wrote on her “Five Wishes” living will were simple: “Have fun.”

Unmistakable marching orders that could not possibly have eluded her husband and two grown daughters.

“Wendy’s ability to be very clear about what she wanted was one of the best things about her,” said award-winning Glenwood Springs actor Bob Moore, who lost his wife of 49 years on Oct. 5 to stomach cancer.

Having fun, Bob said, is how the couple tried to live their entire lives together. “Not that every moment was fun, but we sure tried to look for all the silver linings as often as we possibly could,” he said. Bob swears that last part was not an intentional nod to the movie “Silver Linings Playbook,” which was choreographed by his four-time Emmy Award-winning daughter, Mandy. But, hey, silver lining: It fits.

Mandy Moore is off having fun choreographing Taylor Swift’s worldwide stadium concert tour that launches March 17 in Arizona. Missy Moore is off having fun running the Thunder River Theatre Company in Carbondale and directing its production of the classic American comedy “You Can’t Take it With You.”

And Bob is off having the most meaningful kind of fun that any man who is grieving the loss of his best friend ever could. He’s starring in that very same play as the patriarch of a seemingly mad family that is fully committed to enjoying life every single day.

Bob plays Grandpa Vanderhof, a tax-evading eccentric who lives his life by a simple philosophy: “Don’t

do anything that you’re not going to enjoy doing.” Grandpa spends his days going to circuses, throwing darts and collecting stamps. Which means Bob gets to deliver the famous line that has embedded itself in audiences’ hearts around the world for 87 years. It’s a piece of advice Grandpa gives to an uptight young man who is desperate to make lots of money:

“You can’t take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends.”

There could not be a safer space for Bob Moore to be working through his grief right now than on a stage, saying those words to packed houses in a stage production that, before cancer stole the show, was meant to be directed by Wendy, who made history as the second-most prolific female stage director in Colorado theater history.

The one blessing — if that is an appropriate word — from Wendy’s six-year medical odyssey, Bob said, is that he and his wife had many opportunities to talk about what the future was going to bring without her in it. “And she was very succinct in saying, ‘ Bob, you’ve got to go on. You’ve got to live your life,’” he said.

And Bob’s life, in short, is on the stage. “Wendy asked me what I want out of the rest of my life, and I said, ‘I want to continue doing theater.’ And she said, ‘Well, yeah, you better.’ So that’s what I’ve been doing. I can’t think of a better way for me to honor her, or a better way for me to deal with my own particular sense of grief, than to dive into doing what I love.”

Wendy had an amazing outlook on life, daughter Missy says, “and my dad is embodying it right now. How lucky are we to have the vehicle of live theater and a play like ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ to deal with our grief where we can all be surrounded by a community that not only understands the depth of our loss but celebrates the lives we have collectively created as a family?”

Just as the character of Grandpa Vanderhof could be a case study in the subject of healthy living, Bob could be a case study in the subject of healthy grieving. He’s laughing, acting, singing, telling bad jokes and making people smile through his tears, onstage and in life. Like always.

“My view about this short journey through the cosmos we’re on is this,” he said. “Every one of us is going to end up not making it to the end. So you’ve got to make the most of the time you have.”

That’s some wisdom he picked up even before he met his future wife, or picked up his script to play Grandpa.

Bob had to wrestle with an immense amount of loss and death before he was 20.

“I learned very early when I was in Vietnam that life is a gift,” Bob said. “It either sticks around for quite a while, or you’re done immediately. And you don’t really have a lot of say in it.”

Bob met Wendy on New Year’s Eve 1971 at the famed Heritage Square Opera House in Golden, where Wendy was a waitress and Bob was a budding comic actor. And that’s where they married a year later: in a church of laughter. Over the next 40 years, the pair would work on more than 100 plays together, most with Wendy as the director and Bob performing center stage.

One of the hardest things about Wendy’s cancer journey was when she had to tell Missy, who was named artistic director of the Thunder River Theatre Company in 2022, that she did not have the physical or mental capacity to direct “You Can’t Take it With You,” and that her daughter would have to take it on. Talk about bittersweet. “We’ve actually been in 16 shows together as actors,” Bob said, “but this is the first time Missy has ever directed me.” And, in his typical jovial fashion, he’s turned those sad circumstances into a positive.

“This is a show that’s been on my bucket list for years and years,” he said. “And of course it was a cherry on top of the muffin to have Missy direct me. It has been a wonderful experience.”

Because Bob is the consummate show person, his friends haven’t much seen the private side of his grief. “The hardest part of this transition,” he shared, “has been going from ‘we’ to ‘me.’” But he’s just not the type to disappear into a silo of private mourning. Wendy would never have it.

And Bob is not slowing down when his play closes March 5. He’s created a folk concert titled “So Far, So Good” that he will debut in Carbondale next month followed by three nights in Silverthorne.

“It’s basically me and a guitar doing a couple of folk songs, with a few fun little vaudeville-type things thrown in,” he said. And two of those songs will be dedicated to Wendy. One is called “Let the Tree Fall,” a song that James Earl Stanley wrote for his mother when she died. “It means a lot to me, and it meant a lot to Wendy whenever she heard me sing the song,” he said. The other is “The Song is Love” by Mary Travers from Peter Paul and Mary. That’s a song Bob sang to Wendy at their wedding back in 1972.

“I’ve basically been singing that song to Wendy for 50 years.”

Parents never stop imparting lessons to their children, and Missy has been watching as her father has managed the greatest loss of his lifetime — and taken notes.

“What I have learned from watching my father grieve is that I can see why my mom fell in love with him. You can either let grief control you, or you can honor it and celebrate it and move forward.”

Bob, a vigorous 74, believes the best way he can honor Wendy is to not follow in her footsteps anytime soon.

“I have had a tremendous life — nearly three-quarters of a century,” he said. “And if things keep going the way they are for me right now, I’d love to live to be 100 because I love life and I love taking advantage of each day that I have and living it to the fullest. I really do. That’s a core part of who I am.”

The last thing Wendy would want, Missy added, “would be for my dad to turn into a crotchety old man sitting in a rocking chair with nothing to do.”

Bob has plenty to do. And right now, that’s to both live and preach the gospel of “You Can’t Take it With You.”

“I believe in the message of the play, and I try my best to embrace that,” he said. “You’ve got to make the best of every day. And if you don’t, doggone on it, that’s your fault, in a nutshell.”