"Although I’m not ready to admit it, my father is dying. As cancer takes over his body, we sit together – talking, enjoying the garden, and watching old movies. I’m trying to get a handle on the situation and how I feel about it, but my emotions are a tangled, jumbled mess. All at once I feel isolation, profound sadness, panic, anxiety, anger, frustration, helplessness, fatigue, and, ironically, occasional joy and humor.

When I set out to review Dying: A Book of Comfort, I worried that I might be too close to the topic. But as I read passages in this anthology, my mixed feelings began to come into focus. I realized that perhaps I’m just the kind of person who should be reviewing a book like this. Read straight through, Dying: A Book of Comfort was a spiritual exercise for me. Some chapters let me look at dying from my father’s perspective. Other chapters simply gave me the perspective of people who have been through this before me and my family.

“Pat McNees’s collection contains carefully selected and ordered pieces – poems, prayers, prose, and fiction. The anthology explores a range of experiences: living when you know you are dying; caring for and about someone who is dying; saying goodbye; and dealing with how it feels to be left behind. When Pat was talking with publishers about printing a bookstore version, some told her it should be a book either about dying or about grieving, but Pat saw them as part of a continuum.

“If read straight through, the book’s structure allows the reader to move through the process of dying and grieving in an arc, starting with ‘Illness as Awakening.’ Following chapters examine how people who are dying, as well as their loved ones, experience the process of dying and saying goodbye. The apex of the arc is death itself, with chapters including views on immortality and prayer. The book then moves into the ‘Journey Through Grief.’ What follows are chapters devoted to mourning the loss of a child, parent, or spouse, and to grieving a sudden death or suicide. The closing chapters have their focus on death’s aftermath – the remembering, for example, or the other ways we deal with the ongoingness of this greatest of all losses.

“McNees has kept her selections fairly short. The brevity of the passages, and their concrete relevance to the topic at hand, make the book very reader-friendly. These characteristics reflect the advice of grief counselor, Kathleen Braza, who has found that people who are grieving generally can’t read long passages or process symbolism.

“The first time I read this book, I jumped around, the way I usually read a book of poetry. I’d read a passage here and there, periodically finding one that rang very true for me. Beyond being a personal comfort to me, I found the book to be an excellent resource. I’m often at a loss for words when talking with or writing to someone who is grieving. In its pages I have found just the right passage to share with friends of mine who have lost a mother, a husband, a son.

“While McNees didn’t set out to write a spiritual book, she has created a volume that speaks to the heart. Written after her father’s death, her goal in working on this project was to create a book that would help people through the process of death and grieving. Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of Hospice, says of Pat’s book, ‘This remarkable collection, coming from personal experience and wide reading, will help many find the potential of growth through loss.’

“Dying: A Book of Comfort would make a thoughtful gift for a family or individual coping with terminal illness, someone who is grieving, or people who work with dying or bereaved. It is available in trade paperback at bookstores or in hardcover from the Literary Guild. My copy has already become dog-eared and annotated, as it travels with me to visit my father. Thanks, Pat, for the words of comfort."

~ Eileen Hanning’s review, years ago, for Signature, the newsletter of the Women’s National Book Association, DC chapter