We are all destined to be touched by the subject of this book. In prose spare and unsparing, Ruth Coughlin addresses widowhood in its largest sense, acknowledging that the language of loss, like that of music and love, is universal. "No one can tell you about grief, about its limitless boundaries, its unfathomable depths," she writes in this first-person account detailing the shattering, harrowing circumstances of her husband's ten-month struggle against terminal cancer and the profound devastation that followed his death. "No one can tell you about the crater that is created in the center of your body, the one that nothing can fill.". "The honesty, the day-to-day heroism of this beautifully told, unforgettable story," writes Michael Dorris in his introduction, "is the genuine article, the real stuff of forever." But here too are the specifics - the panic attacks, the dismantling of a life, the sorrowful hush that follows when death puts an end to a great love affair and a widow is left with nothing more to lose. Ruth Coughlin writes with beauty and honesty about love and marriage and preserving the day. "There is no right or wrong to widowhood; nobody's written the rules," Coughlin explains. "You make them up as you go along." Grieving: A Love Story is personal memoir at its best.

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